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June 20 is National Bring Your Dog to Work Day, and writer/director James Gunn is celebrating by sharing how his pup inspired his most recent work: Superman.
The new film about the Man of Steel, which opens in theaters July 11, stars David Corenswet as the titular superhero and a fluffy white pooch as Superman’s talented hero canine, Krypto the Superdog.
Krypto might look familiar to Gunn’s fans because the super pooch is based on the director’s own dog, Ozu, whom Gunn adopted around the same time he started working on 2025’s Superman.
“When I first adopted Ozu, I was starting to write the Superman script. Ozu was such a terrible, uncontrollable dog — tearing up our entire house — I thought, ‘What if he had superpowers? We’d be screwed.’ And thus, the filmic Krypto was born. He really just gave the script that unusual aspect that made it fun to write,” Gunn tells PEOPLE about his canine muse.
Warner Bros. Pictures
In October 2024, Gunn first teased Ozu’s connection to Krypto and provided more context on what made Ozu’s early life so destructive.
“Ozu, who came from a hoarding situation in a backyard with 60 other dogs & never knew human beings, was problematic to say the least. He immediately came in & 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,” Gunn wrote in the Oct. 2024 Instagram post, adding that the rescue dog, “changed the shape of the story” and his life.
Ozu’s inspiration for the Superman story didn’t stop with the script; the dog also served as the visual inspiration for Krypto. Both pups have one floppy ear and a scruffy coat that begs to be cuddled.
“We’d captured Ozu’s body and used it as the model for Krypto, just changing the color of his fur. We also used the hundreds of video references for the way Ozu played and fought and bit my feet for Krypto’s onscreen actions,” Gunn shares how Superman brought Ozu’s energy to the film.
Ozu even gave his bark of approval for Krypto’s look. According to Gunn, the rescue dog loves to bark at almost any animal that appears on screen, but “he seems to attack himself as Krypto most of all.”
While Ozu still has plenty of energy, he has made huge strides from the overwhelmed dog Gunn and his family first met.
Warner Bros. Pictures
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“Ozu loves my 13-year-old cat, Emily. She’s been around dogs all her life and really hasn’t paid them much attention, but for some reason, she puts up with Ozu and loves to play with him,” Gunn says of how the dog is today. “Ozu loves to play a game with me and Emily where he runs around the house like a maniac, and Emily and I team up and jump out and tackle him from hiding places.”
Animal lovers can see Ozu’s playful nature on screen by watching Krypto in Superman, which arrives in theaters on July 11.
