Dog Trailer: Channing Tatum Meets Man's Not-So Best Friend

2021 is an animal extravaganza, a stable of riches from "Pig" to "Lamb." The latest offering from MGM is a buddy comedy with the meticulously crafted title, "Dog," about a dog, and has dropped a new trailer for your viewing pleasure. Co-directed by Channing Tatum and Reid Carolin, "Dog" stars Tatum as Briggs, an Army Ranger assigned to bring a rowdy dog down the Pacific Coast in Briggs' 84 Ford Bronco for the dog's late handler's funeral. That dog, Lulu, happens to be a Belgian Malinois. Go look up the comments on any trailer for this movie, it's filled with Malinois owners warning people not to go out and sign their kids up for the intense commitment the breed requires. So, it at least seems believable that Lulu would be likely to give Tatum's Ranger a paws-itively ruff time. It's 90 minutes long, it's a family-friendly PG-13, and following Stewie Griffin's blanket synopsis, "Some friends become enemies, some enemies become friends," the story of "Dog" looks like the feel-good furball family movie of the season. Air Bud has 48 hours to respond.

Check out the trailer for "Dog" below.

Channing Tatum is slowly getting his due praise as a versatile talent in the film industry, but let it be known that /Film has never dropped the ball there. "Dog" is Tatum's first turn at the helm of a feature, but he tag-teams with production partner Carolin, the mighty pen behind the "Magic Mike" films that cemented Tatum's stardom. Carolin will also be co-writing an upcoming untitled Universal monster movie-inspired thriller, and guess who is attached to star?

/Film's Sandy Schaffer posited that "Dog" seemed, at its core, deceptively similar in spirit to the stripper-riffic "Magic Mike" films. "Both," Schaffer writes, "are films where Tatum plays someone who gets caught up in a wild road trip adventure at a time when they're struggling to shake off the failings of their past and figure out what's next for them." So what I'm getting out of that phenomenal observation is that we might see Lulu in a "Magic Mike" film, or vice versa (we don't yet know how "Dog" is going to end, and I've been burned by these movies before), which could imply the existence of a Magic Mike Cinematic Universe — an MMCU, if you will. Terr-ruff-ic.

Tatum co-directs with Reid Carolin, and the pair co-produce the feature together along with Peter Kiernan and Gregory Jacobs under Free Association and Brett Rodriguez. Carolin co-writes the script along with Brett Rodriguez. Rodriguez and Tatum previously produced the 2017 documentary "War Dog: A Soldier's Best Friend" with HBO Films, directed by Deborah Scranton. Q'orianka Kilcher ("The New World") and Jane Adams ("Twin Peaks: The Return") co-star with Tatum, and are supported by Kevin Nash (the "Magic Mike" films) as Gus, Aqueela Zoll ("Filthy Rich") as Callan, and Nicole LaLiberte ("Twin Peaks: The Return") as Zoe. "Dog" also boasts the talents of "Da 5 Bloods" cinematographer Newton Thomas Sigel, and the unstoppable composer Thomas Newman, whose score for "Skyfall" remains my personal favorite of any Bond picture.

"Dog" arrives in theaters in February 2022.