‘Stray Dogs’ Movie, Described as ‘Silence of the Lambs’ Meets ‘Lady and the Tramp’, in the Works From Paramount Animation

Paramount Animation and producer Gary Dauberman are ready to let the dogs out, and I’m so very sorry I opened this story with that sentence, I had no choice. Anyway, Dauberman is producing Stray Dogs, a movie based on an upcoming Image Comics title from Tony Fleecs and Trish Forstner. Plot details aren’t readily available, but the project is described as Silence of the Lambs meets Lady and the Tramp.

THR has the scoop on the Stray Dogs movie, reporting that Paramount Animation and Gary Dauberman have picked up the rights, with Game Night writer Mark Perez tackling the script. In addition to Game Night, Stray Dogs screenwriter Mark Perez’s credits include the upcoming Netflix movie Movie Night (this guy loves writing about nights!), and Superworld. Both projects involve Game Night star Jason Bateman. Dauberman has a lot of horror credits to his name, having written Annabelle, Annabelle: Creation, It, It: Chapter 2, and more. He’s also set to write and direct an adaptation of Stephen King’s Salem’s Lot.

“So much of what makes horror work is taking something innocent and twisting it into something scary,” Dauberman said. “Like a doll in Annabelle. Or a clown in It. And that’s what we want to do in Stray Dogs – take animation and twist it into something terrifying by using it to explore a really dark story. For me, the project combines a lot of my passions: animation, horror, and…well, dogs.”

Again: plot details are being kept secret and all anyone will say is that the project is like Silence of the Lambs meets Lady and the Tramp, whatever the hell that means. Image Comics will release the Stray Dogs comic in 2021, so we’ll know more then. It’s hard for me to give an accurate appraisal of this news since there’s so little to go on, but I will say that if Paramount is planning on making an R-rated horror-comedy about dogs, I’m very curious to see that. I have nothing to base that R-rating on, I’m just taking a guess based on the titles Dauberman already has to his name.

No release date is in place yet for the Stray Dogs movie, but I imagine that since the movie is going to be animated it’ll have more wiggle room here in the ongoing coronavirus world.