Picking apart the bones of what went wrong with Black Adam has taken up so much space in the pop culture conversation that it’s easy to forget Dwayne Johnson attempted to launch two DC franchises last year, only for both of them to fall at the first hurdle.
While there hasn’t been an official confirmation or denial that DC League of Super-Pets will be a one-and-done effort, you’ve got to imagine that James Gunn’s plans to dovetail the franchise across film, television, live-action, and animation isn’t going to involve a second outing for Johnson’s Krypto and the rest of the gang.
The only major downside is that we won’t get to see Keanu Reeves as Batman again, but it turns out that Gunn is a major fan of at least one of Johnson’s comic book characters, after he voiced his enthusiasm for Superman’s canine companion.
It’s massively ironic that the man who exiled The Rock from the DCU after Black Adam failed to live up to expectations and burned out in a blaze of hyperbolic ignominy would out himself as a major supporter of the role the same actor voiced in an equally subpar offering released only months prior, never mind one that saw Johnson double down to no avail in setting up a showdown with the Man of Steel across two different mediums.
Having already been called upon to cast Vin Diesel as the rebooted mythology’s Black Adam to stick it to his Fast & Furious arch-nemesis, we’ll be very intrigued to see if Krypto ends up making a splash in the future of the DCU to see both of Johnson’s parts given fresh coats of paint to rub even more salt into a hugely embarrassing wound.