Superman’s Dog Krypto Was Inspired by Director James Gunn’s Rescue Dog Ozu

Best known for The Guardians of the Galaxy trilogy, director James Gunn’s latest superhero movie is the Superman reboot coming next summer (starring David Corenswet). And the recent reveal that has many fans pumped up is the inclusion of Superman’s dog Krypto.

This is the first feature film to include Krypto with James Gunn sharing how it came to be. Gunn adopted a terrier mutt named Ozu just after he started writing the script for Superman in early 2022. Ozu was saved from a terrible backyard breeder with 60 other dogs. Ozu had no experience with humans, so adjusting to his forever home was pretty challenging. In the caption below, Gunn mentions Ozu not only destroyed furniture and shoes, he even ate his laptop!

Gunn then pondered, “Gosh, how difficult would life be if Ozu had superpowers?” While Ozu was wreaking havoc with his furniture, a superpup version of him would have just left a crater where his house used to be.

This led to Gunn being the first to bring Krypto to the big screen. Then the first teaser trailer for Superman was released, with Kypto prominently featured alongside his superdad.

His scene shows an injured Superman whistling for his pup, who then zooms in and starts dragging him to safety.

And check out the full teaser trailer below.

What breed is Superman’s dog Krypto?

The canine character of Krypto has taken on various looks since he was introduced in 1955, but the super dog’s breed is most often depicted as like Labrador or sometimes more like a Pitbull. But essentially Krypto always has white fur and appears as an “every dog” generic breed. In the DC Universe, Krypto comes from Superman’s homeworld of Krypton. Like with his alter ego Clark Kent, Krypto goes by the name “Skip” while posing as an earth dog. Krypto’s powers are similar to his super dad, such as super strength and speed. Krypto’s most recent appearance was in DC League of Super-Pets, where he was voiced by Dwayne johnson.

In the 2025 Superman reboot, Krypto’s look and breed are similar to James Gunn’s dog Ozu, who is a terrier mutt. But Gunn also told IGN that Krypto takes inspiration from Ozu’s personality and story, “You’ll see in the movie that Krypto probably comes off as a better dog in the trailer than he is in the movie. 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.” So with Ozu being a terror due to the horrible early life who grew to love and be a good boy, we could expect Krypto to follow a similar path in the movie.

For more Super Pets: Meet Tango the feline actor from The Marvels movie and did you know Dogpool was the intimacy coordinator on Deadpool & Wolverine?