If you’ve watched the debut Superman trailer, you’ll probably have fallen in love with Krypto the Superdog. We see a battered and bloody Superman, apparently close to death, rescued by Krypto after Superman asks him to take him home. Based on the trailer, then, Krypto is a very good dog indeed.
But don’t let that fool you. In an interview Q&A session attended by IGN, writer and director James Gunn confirmed Krypto is actually a “pretty terrible dog” in the movie.
“You’ll see in the movie that Krypto probably comes off as a better dog in the trailer than he is in the movie,” Gunn said. “Pretty terrible dog! You love him because he’s a dog and how can you not? And he’s got the cute, innocent eyes, but he’s a terrible dog.”
Krypto the Superdog is based on Gunn’s own dog, Ozu, who he admits is poorly behaved. In an Instagram post from October, Gunn said he adopted Ozu shortly after he started writing Superman. “Ozu, who came from a hoarding situation in a backyard with 60 other dogs and never knew human beings, was problematic to say the least,” Gunn said.
“He immediately came in and destroyed our home, our shoes, our furniture — he even ate my laptop. It took a long time before he would even let us touch him. I remember thinking, ‘Gosh, how difficult would life be if Ozu had superpowers?’ — and thus Krypto came into the script and changed the shape of the story as Ozu was changing my life.”
It turns out that, a month later, Ozu seems to be behaving better. “Actually, I was saying to my wife last night in bed, I’m like, we’ve just got into a new house here. And I’m like, Ozu’s been kind of good since we got here. What’s going on with him?” Gunn said in the Q&A. “He’s getting a little bit older… he’s not so bad. He hasn’t torn up any of our furniture yet. We’ll see!”
Superman hits theatres on July 11, 2025, and is the first film in the DCU’s Chapter One: Gods and Monsters. IGN has an explainer on all the DC Heroes and Villains in the new trailer and plenty more.
Wesley is the UK News Editor for IGN. Find him on Twitter at @wyp100. You can reach Wesley at wesley_yinpoole@ign.com or confidentially at wyp100@proton.me.
