Dog Man is now in theaters!
On Friday, Jan. 31, the animated movie, which is based on the bestselling book series by Captain Underpants author Dav Pilkey, premiered on the big screen.
In 2016, Pilkey released the first Dog Man book which follows a cop who is part dog and part man.
“With the head of a dog and the body of a human, this heroic hound digs into deception, claws after crooks, rolls over robbers and scampers after squirrels,” the book’s description reads. “Will he be able to resist the call of the wild to answer the call of duty?”
Dog Man formed when an on-the-job injury resulted in Officer Knight having to have his dog Greg’s head sewn onto his body.
The majorly successful series — which is a spinoff from the smash hit Captain Underpants — has gone on to release several more books. Its 13th installment, Dog Man: Big Jim Begins, hit the shelves on Dec. 3.
“With this new book, I wanted to share the origin story of my characters, as readers get to know more about Big Jim — a character who is playful, kind, overly optimistic and often misunderstood and who sometimes gets into trouble despite having the best intentions,” Pilkey said in a statement to PEOPLE at the time.
According to a press release from publishing company Scholastic, there are over 60 million Dog Man books in print worldwide and they are available in 47 languages.
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Pilkey’s creativity dates back to when he was a kid at school and would get kicked out of class.
“Luckily, Dav loved to draw and make up stories, so he spent his time in the hallway creating his own original comic books — the very first adventures of Dog Man and Captain Underpants,” the release reads.
“Since then, Dav has written and illustrated a number of bestselling and award-winning children’s books, including the Caldecott Honor book The Paperboy.”
Now, the beloved kids’ series has hit the big screen. The Dog Man movie is directed by Emmy-winner Peter Hastings and produced by Karen Foster. Its cast includes Pete Davidson, Lil Rey Howery, Poppy Liu, Isla Fisher Billy Boyd and Ricky Gervais.
Much like the books, the movie follows the faithful police dog and his human police officer owner, who get injured together on the job.
“A harebrained but life-saving surgery fuses the two of them together, and Dog Man is born,” a synopsis teases. “Dog Man is sworn to protect and serve — and fetch, sit and roll over.”
Dog Man then makes it his mission to impress his Chief (Lil Rel Howery) as he tries to “stop the pretty evil plots of feline supervillain Petey the Cat (Davidson).”
Dog Man is in theaters now and available to read, wherever books are sold.
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