Warning: SPOILERS for DC League of Super-Pets are in play. If you haven’t caught the movie yet, consider this a Kryptonite-level warning.
Showcasing a variety of animals in its lineup, DC League of Super-Pets somewhat has it out for one particular species in the animated adventure. Though Kevin Hart and Dwayne Johnson’s canine leads are accompanied by other creatures great and small, it appears that cats are truly villainous in this DC movie incarnation of Metropolis. With all due respect to feline friends, co-writer/director Jared Stern has actually reinforced his love of cats, and has some plans for a new character of that breed in the potential sequel.
While it’s all in good fun, the movie still falls back on the stereotype that cats are evil. Just to set the record straight, I asked Jared Stern during out interview for DC League of Super-Pets if there was something that cats had ever done to him to cause this twist. Clearing up his feelings about one of the many fuzzy species the internet has become obsessed with, Stern told CinemaBlend about his potential plan for DC League of Super-Pets 2:
OK, I need to say this: I love cats, the shelter that I volunteered at one day, that my wife volunteers at, is a cat shelter. … Our good friend's daughter, Winona, plays Whiskers the cat; and yes she’s a villain in [DC League of Super-Pets]. But I think a pretty adorable, badass villain. If we’re lucky to make a sequel, I do think we need to have a hero cat, just to be clear that they’re not all evil. Because we love cats, they’re fantastic too.
Cats and guinea pigs help the villainous Lulu (Kate McKinnon) wage her war against DC League of Super-Pets’ heroic bunch, led by Krypto the Superdog (Dwayne Johnson) and Ace the Bat-Hound (Kevin Hart). One cat who is an especially psychotic example is the superpowered Whiskers the Kitten (Winona Bradshaw). Given superpowers by the evil scheming of Lulu, Whiskers hunts down the DC League of Super-Pets leads with some menacing, but comedic results.
Wielding a tail that fires missiles, having the option to create hairball grenades and boasting the ability to call upon a litany of pop culture references/threats from such films as The Warriors and A Nightmare on Elm Street, this kitten has more claws than some of the harsher reactions in Super-Pets’ overall mixed critical reception. Don't let the photo I'm about to share fool you, the orange cat you're about to lay eyes on is a psycho:
This comes after an earlier gag where another kitten is seen mocking the soon-to-be Super-Pets just as the critter is being adopted from the shelter they’re all kept at. DC League of Super-Pets certainly isn’t an accurate reflection of Jared Stern’s history with cats, as the director admitted to being a staunch supporter of shelters and fostering.
Using the experience of working at an animal shelter to craft the overall story of the film, his feelings towards animals even helped him decide to add a second Taylor Swift song to the film’s soundtrack. Reflecting on the experience, adding a hero cat to the next DC League of Super-Pets feels like a good move, especially when Nickelodeon's Paw Patrol made a similar change thanks to the recent Cat Pack event series.
Dogs still outnumber the cats in DC League of Super-Pets world, with two of them being voiced by Dwayne Johnson; but there’s still plenty of room for a friendly cat to join the team. If two of the guinea pigs that previously sided with Lulu could flip to the side of heroes, anything can happen. Should that happen, the cast of DC League of Super-Pets might find itself adding another impressive star to its galaxy of talent.
We’ll have to wait and see if another round of Super-Pets action comes to pass, as the origin story of Ace and his shelter gang are currently being told at a theater near you. Dwayne Johnson fans will definitely be getting another fix of magic, as Black Adam is set to debut as a 2022 movie release on October 21st.
