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Dav Pilkey's Dog Man is finally making his cinematic debut in 2025

Finally, the best-selling superhero of the moment will get his time on the big screen

Dog Man
Image credit: Scholastic

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After 11 best-selling volumes, Dog Man - the wildly succesful kids graphic novel series from Captain Underpants creator Dav Pilkey - is finally getting a movie adaptation... and it'll hit screens just next year! DreamWorks Animation, the folks behind Kung Fu Panda, How to Train Your Dragon, and The Boss Baby, is bringing one of Scholastic's biggest hits to the big screen on January 31, 2025.

For those who haven't been initiated into the Dog Man fandom, here's how Dreamworks explains the high-concept behind the adaptation: "When a dog and a police officer are injured together on the job, a life-saving surgery changes the course of history when Dog Man is born. Half dog, half man, Dog Man is sworn to protect and serve — as long as he isn’t distracted by squirrels — as he doggedly pursues his arch-nemesis: the feline supervillain Petey the Cat. But the rivalry between Dog Man and Petey is upended by the arrival of an adorable kitten clone of Petey, Li'l Petey, who changes the game for both of them."

(Fans of the books - or the spin-off Cat Kid Comic Club series - know firsthand just how dramatically Li'l Petey switches everything up.)

Dog Man will be directed by Peter Hastings, who also worked on Pilkey adaptation The Epic Tales of Captain Underpants, and produced by Karen Foster (How to Train Your Dragon). The film will be distributed by Universal Pictures.


If you want to catch up on all the Dog Man books before the movie hits the big screen, here's how to read Dog Man (and all of Dav Pilkey's other books) in order!