Thanks to China’s apparent appreciation of saccharine tearjerker animal movies, we’re getting a sequel to the 2017 film A Dog’s Purpose, which starred Dennis Quaid, Josh Gadd’s voice and several very fluffy dogs. And in honor of National Dog Day, a number of actors announced they’ve signed onto this new canine epic, including Marg Helgenberger, former Queen of CSI.
According to Variety, Helgenberger will join Quaid and Gadd in A Dog’s Journey, as will Betty Gilpin from GLOW, K-pop star Henry Lau, and former Skins actor Kathryn Prescott. It’s not clear what the sad dog plot will be this time around; the original film essentially followed around a floating dog spirit as it reincarnated as different dog bodies several times over.
The first A Dog’s Purpose was notable not for its plot—it earned a standout 33 percent “Rotten” rating on Rotten Tomatoes, although it did better with audiences than critics—but for its controversy, as its producers were accused of committing animal cruelty when a video surfaced that appeared to show a German Shepherd being abused for a take. The American Humane Association later deemed that the video was doctored and no animals were abused.
I cannot bear to see any movies in which dogs die, as evidenced by a very traumatic experience with My Dog Skip, so a movie about dogs dying repeatedly is out of the question for me. NEXT.