DC League of Super-Pets Director Jared Stern Reveals Which Characters Were Cut From the Film
The Justice League are being united with their canine counterparts. DC League of Super-Pets brings the likes of Dwayne "The Rock" Johnson's Krypto the Superdog and Kevin Hart's Ace the Bat-Hound together to form their own animal assembly of heroes, standing alongside the likes of John Krasinski's Superman and Keanu Reeves' Batman. Krypto and Ace round out their squad with Diego Luna's Chip, Vanessa Bayer's PB, Natasha Lyonne's Merton, Thomas Middleditch's Keith, Ben Schwartz's Mark, and others both based on DC Comics characters and original players created for this movie. While Keith, a guinea pig, finds himself at Arthur Curry's side, director Jared Stern revealed that his team toyed with the idea of bringing a familiar Aquaman sidekick into the fold.
"It's very tricky to animate an octopus," Stern told ComicBook.com. "And ultimately you're always having to make choices throughout production and so that was one that we couldn't quite make work with everything else."
Stern is likely referring to Topo, an octopus with human levels of intelligence that stands by the King of Atlantis. In the comics, Topo even develops archery skills, believed to be taught by Green Arrow. Topo actually already has a project in his filmography, as the octopus pops up in 2018's Aquaman during the Ring of Fire duel between Arthur and Orm, playing the drums for the big battle.
Aquaman's octopus was not the only character that didn't make it to the big screen. Stern said more Superman-related pets and even a Wonder Woman favorite were discussed, but ultimately did not fit into the Metropolis-based shelter that they were creating.
"We love the original Legion of Super Pets like Comet and Beppo but they're Superman-centric," Stern continued. "And we wanted to get into potential pets for the whole Justice League. And our origin story delves into rescue pets who need a home so we leaned into DC animals who'd make sense at a Metropolis shelter (sorry, Jumpa!) and just maybe match up with our Justice League."
On the page, Comet is a super-horse while Beppo is a super-monkey. Comet is often linked with Supergirl as her pet pony, while Beppo beats to his own drum. Both go on to be founding members of the Legion of Super-Pets, alongside Krypto. The other pet Stern mentions, Jumpa, is a species of flying kangaroo from Paradise Island. This joey pops up as Wonder Woman's trusty steed in the comics.
DC League of Super-Pets is now playing in theaters. Watch Stern's full interview above!