DC League of Super-Pets unfolds in a gorgeously Art Deco Metropolis, unlike anything we’ve seen since the Fleischer Superman cartoons in the 1940s. This was just one among many other touchstones for director Jared Stern, who professes to being a long-time fan of DC Comic and of landmark artist Jim Lee, who’s now the company’s Chief Creative Officer, and to whom Stern would report while working on the film. “I mean, how cool is that?” Stern said. “Growing up, we were reading all of his comics, and now he was the one that we were showing our stuff to. So, that was really helpful, because no one knows DC better.” The movie, which follows the super-dog Krypto (Dwayne Johnson), draws from plenty of the comics’ obscure corners — and features a litany of blink-and-you’ll-miss-it Easter eggs, like a Jonah Hex-themed steakhouse — but it also features pop culture juggernauts with their own history and iconography, like Superman (John Krasinski) and Batman (Keanu Reeves), each played by actors who bring their own histories to the screen.
For Stern, casting Reeves and Krasinski was more than just a matter of them being recognizable names and faces. “We would pull clips from other movies that they’ve done. We'd pull clips from talk show appearances as well, things like that,” Stern explained. “Because you just want to get what they're like when they're just casual, and they're just talking, in addition to when they're acting. And we would just try to get lost in the performance and see our Batman, see our Superman.”
Recently, Reeves was asked whether he’d like to don the cape and cowl in live-action at some point; his answer was positive, but diplomatic, and he had kind words for Robert Pattinson too, who played the Caped Crusader in The Batman earlier this year. According to Stern, that sentiment isn’t new: “He was also very respectful of Rob Pattinson, and said he's doing a great job now.” However, on the idea of Reeves someday usurping the role, he joked: “Maybe in the future. And if that happens, you're welcome.”
If Reeves does happen to take on the Bat-mantle, he wouldn’t be the first cast member from DC League of Super-Pets to play a live action superhero, or even the second. Dwayne Johnson is set to appear in Black Adam later this year, but speculation is also running rampant that Krasinski could make the full-time jump to playing Reed Richards of the Fantastic Four, the character he cameoed as in Doctor Strange in the Multiverse of Madness back in May. However, like most of us, Stern had no idea this was in the cards until he saw Krasinski in the role. “I'm glad I didn't know because I hate having to keep secrets. I don't know how those Marvel guys do it, and DC. They got so many spoilers. So, no, I'm glad he didn't tell me,” Stern said. “He would talk to us more about how his kids were so psyched that he was Superman, and maybe they would finally be excited about one of his movies.”
While this was Stern’s first major outing with Superman, it wasn’t his first time working on a comedic, animated Batman, since he’d also written for The Lego Batman Movie, where the character was voiced by Will Arnett. “I was just a small part of that movie with some really wonderful, talented writers, and obviously directors and producers, and Will Arnett, who I loved going to those recording sessions with. Those are some of my favorite days of my career, watching Will Arnett do Lego Batman.” However, for Stern, directing a film with yet another Caped Crusader send-up meant finding a take on the character that stood apart. “Lego Batman is very confident and full of himself,” he explained. “And so we just tried pushing in a different direction for this guy who's haunted, and has seen some stuff in his life.”
Reeves’ Batman features only in a handful of scenes, but they’re choc-a-bloc with hilariously timed delivery of straightforward lines (for instance, after a lull in a conversation, Reeves’ Batman rasps entirely out of the blue: “I miss my parents”). For Stern, landing on this sort of sad-clown delivery in the pre-production process meant instinctively putting on his own tongue-in-cheek Batman voice, a gruff whisper he demonstrated over our Zoom call. “I start doing the dumb voice because I can’t help it. That was how I found it,” Stern added. “And so thank god Keanu came in and made it much, much better.”
Like Krasinski, best known for playing Jim Halpert on The Office, Reeves brings his own familiar baggage to the screen, with roles like Neo in The Matrix. However, his most recent successes have been in the John Wick franchise, which kicked off with the titular assassin going on a vengeance spree because someone killed his puppy. In a story where Krypto crosses paths with an emotionally guarded mutt named Ace (Kevin Hart), whose grey color scheme and pointy ears practically make him destined to end up alongside Batman, it only made sense to cast an actor like Reeves for this version of the character. “He’s a guy who has fallen into a well and he's had a rough life, and really, he just needs some love. He needs a dog to lick his face. It happens to the best of us.”
DC League of Super-Pets opens in theaters July 29, 2022.