In the eternal battle between cats and dogs, one crazed feline has just taken things a paw too far. Kitty Galore, a former elite agent for spy organization MEOWS, has gone rogue. In 48 hours, she plans to unleash a diabolical device designed to not only bring her canine enemies to heel but take down her former kitty comrades and make the world her scratching post. Faced with this immediate and unprecedented threat, cats and dogs will be forced to work together for the first time in history in an unlikely alliance to save themselves—and their beloved humans—from global cat-astrophe. It’s time for the fur to fly.The comedy “Cats & Dogs: The Revenge of Kitty Galore,” a blend of live action, state-of-the-art puppetry and computer animation in 3D, stars Emmy Award winner Christina Applegate (“Friends,” “Samantha Who?”), Oscar® nominee Michael Clarke Duncan (“The Green Mile”), Emmy Award nominee Neil Patrick Harris (“How I Met Your Mother”), Emmy Award winner Sean Hayes (“Will & Grace”), James Marsden (“Hairspray”), two-time Oscar® nominee, Emmy and multiple Grammy Award winner Bette Midler, Oscar® nominee Nick Nolte (“Affliction,” “The Prince of Tides”), Emmy Award winner Joe Pantoliano (“The Sopranos”), comedian and rapper Katt Williams (“The Katt Phenomenon”), Chris O’Donnell (“NCIS: Los Angeles”), Emmy Award nominee Jack McBrayer (“30 Rock”), SNL regular Fred Armisen (“Anchorman: The Legend of Ron Burgundy”) and Paul Rodriguez (“Tortilla Soup,” “Comic Relief VII”).

The film is directed by Brad Peyton and written by Ron J. Friedman & Steve Bencich, based on characters created by John Requa & Glenn Ficarra.  It is produced by Andrew Lazar and Polly Johnsen, with Brent O’Connor and Bruce Berman serving as executive producers.  The creative behind-the-scenes team includes director of photography Steven Poster, production designer Rusty Smith, editor Julie Rogers and composer Christopher Lennertz.
Visual effects are supervised by Randy Starr, and animatronic effects by David Barclay.  The animal actors appear through Boone’s Animals for Hollywood, under the supervision of trainer Boone Narr.

“Cats & Dogs: The Revenge of Kitty Galore” will be presented in 3D where available. Warner Bros. Pictures presents, in association with Village Roadshow Pictures, a Mad Chance/Polymorphic Pictures Production: “Cats & Dogs: The Revenge of Kitty Galore,” distributed worldwide by Warner Bros. Pictures, a Warner Bros. Entertainment Company, and in select territories by Village Roadshow Pictures.

www.catsanddogs2.co.uk

ABOUT THE PRODUCTION

“You are about to experience something that no human has ever seen.”

People the world over adore their pets.  And why not?  Just look at them: a steady old sheepdog with a shaggy mop of hair, a soft, sweet purring kitten…such simple creatures, so loyal and loving, and all they ask from us is our protection and support.
Clueless humans!  Guess again.

“That picture of domestic harmony is just what they want you to see,” claims director Brad Peyton, who happily exposes the true story of backyard politics in “Cats & Dogs: The Revenge of Kitty Galore.”

The truth is those placid furballs idling on the sofa and goofy mutts chasing their tails are really the paw-soldiers of a vast underground network of canine and feline covert agents, surveillance experts and four-legged assassins of every stripe.  Heroes from both sides of the fence, they risk their lives to protect our way of life and uphold the balance of power between mankind’s most trusted and fiercely competitive animal companions: cats and dogs.
It’s the thin furry line between life as we know it and pure howling madness.

“Once people bond with their pets and get to know their personalities, it’s easy to imagine them doing things when we’re not around,” Peyton suggests.  “This movie is just an extension of that idea—that animals have their own secret lives.  Of course, we take it a lot further; we have them using jet packs and rocket cars.  But it all comes from that basic curiosity that I think most of us have had at one time or another, wondering what our cats and dogs really do all day.  It’s why candid clips of animals caught in the act of being themselves are so popular on the Internet.”

Producer Andrew Lazar, who first introduced audiences worldwide to this battleground of paws and claws in the 2001 hit comedy “Cats & Dogs,” says, “The idea that these animals are living such actively outrageous lives right under our noses is what makes it so irresistible.  Cats and dogs can save the world while people go about their business completely unaware of how close they came to disaster.” With that in mind, the everyday activities of the average pet take on new meaning.

Christina Applegate, who stars as the voice of MEOWS agent Catherine, says, “It’s absolutely absurd and fantastic, this whole secret high-tech world they have and yet it’s presented as perfectly normal.  It’s as if all that other stuff they do—like purring and doing tricks, or tearing up the yard—is just designed to distract us from what’s really going on.”

And what’s really going on is nothing less than the endless war between two species at odds since their earliest ancestors sought out the first caveman’s campfire.  But now, one renegade agent has upped the ante.  Determined to not only break the bond between dogs and humans forever but also pit feline against feline, Kitty Galore’s bid for global domination could jeopardize the future of all creatures, four- and two-legged alike.

“We don’t mean to misrepresent our feline friends as all bad,” says producer Polly Johnsen.  “It’s just this one cat who isn’t quite with the program.  As a result, cats and dogs must unite against a common foe and, in fact, it’s another cat, Catherine, who emerges as a true hero by being the first to extend her paw to the other side.”
“We thought it was time for them to team up as equals,” adds Lazar.

Longtime James Bond fan Brad Peyton likens this uneasy partnership to that of the classic cold-war era scenarios in which “Bond and MI-6 are forced to collaborate with the Russians to get the über-villain who’s threatening them both.  They still don’t like each other, but somehow they make it work.”

His appreciation for the Bond mystique led Peyton to cast Roger Moore in a cameo role as the voice of MEOWS Chief Tab Lazenby—a tuxedo cat, of course, and one of the many film and pop-culture jokes offered to the adults in the audience.

Says Peyton, “We’ve got everything you’d want in an action adventure: jet-pack chases, explosions, fights, flights, spies, more explosions, and underground tunnels.  It just happens to be with talking animals.”

Citing differences in scope between this film and its predecessor, Lazar says, “This is bigger in every respect—the action, the set pieces, the sheer number of animals in each scene. We’ll get a full view of DOG Headquarters this time and look inside the rival cat agency, MEOWS.  The bigger landscapes allowed our trainers to use the environments to get more sophisticated performances from the animal actors and that, combined with advances in computer animation, means more fluid action on screen.”

Some of it will even bounce, claw and leap off the screen, thanks to a 3D presentation designed for kids and family audiences, which includes numerous breakout moments throughout the story.  “This is the perfect kind of comic action that lends itself so well to a 3D experience, and that just adds to the fun,” says Johnsen.
This new adventure also boasts a larger company of characters, reuniting some fan favorites from the first film while adding new players on both sides of the conflict.
With so many vocal roles to cast, Johnsen relates, “We looked for distinctive voices that would project a personality and immediately set that individual apart.  In the early stages of production, when we didn’t have the animals’ mouth movements in yet, it was just the voices that let us know who was talking.  The second you hear a voice you should think, ‘that’s a Beagle,’ or ‘that’s a Russian Blue.’”

“We were so fortunate to work with this fantastic group of actors,” says Peyton.  “With this kind of a movie, actors rarely get a chance to interact in person, but even so, their work came together in a way that created its own chemistry and in that sense they truly were an ensemble.”
“It’s a lot of fun,” says James Marsden, who voices rookie agent Diggs, a German Shepherd with leadership issues.  “This movie doesn’t take itself too seriously, although, at the same time, the characters behave as if the fate of the world was really at stake.  Dogs using headsets and computer keyboards, throwing grenades; it’s all played straight and that’s what makes it so funny.  The more determined they are, the crazier it is.”

Well, that’s certainly one point of view, though Bette Midler might disagree.  Starring as the voice of Kitty Galore, the scariest, loopiest, fur-challenged feline to swipe a claw since the maniacal Mr. Tinkles earned a permanent time-out at Doggie Alcatraz, Midler says, “I’ve been asked if I believe people are going to like this movie because they think their animals talk to them.  Well, I don’t know about anyone else but I had an animal that did talk to me.  She was a Jack Russell terrier, a dear friend of mine, and she spoke in complete sentences.”

Let’s get ready to rumble.

The Long Shot: Diggs

“I hear he’s a loose cannon, a real dingo.”

While Kitty Galore grooms herself for greatness, another drama plays out on the streets of San Francisco.  S.F.P.D. K-9 Officer Diggs is about to execute the latest in a series of screw-ups that will land him back in the concrete kennel.

James Marsden understands how the over-eager German Shepherd sabotages his potential.  “He has the best intentions in the world but not the best judgment.  Wanting to be the maverick, the hero, he recklessly takes the lead in every situation, with disastrous consequences.  He’s likeable and has real ability, but no self-control.  Sadly, for all the confidence he shows on the outside, he’s beginning to have real doubts.”

“He knows he keeps messing up, but he just can’t help himself,” adds Chris O’Donnell, in the role of Diggs’ compassionate human partner on the police force, Shane.  “When Shane and Diggs go out on a job, sure enough, he jumps into action before he’s told.  Shane knows he’s trying hard and it’s frustrating for both of them because every time they face a tough call the dog does something to make it worse—spectacularly worse.”

As the story opens, Shane and Diggs are on a case.  Used car impresario Crazy Carlito is living up to his name by going nuts at his car lot, threatening to blow it all up.  Against orders, Diggs lunges at Carlito’s backside for a massive chomp, prompting the startled salesman to toss his detonator skyward… with unfortunate consequences.

Paul Rodriguez, who stars as Crazy Carlito, says, “Right before he was going to bite me, I called for the stunt double.  That poor guy had to get bitten and all I had to do was act like it.  Sure, they had padding but that German Shepherd had some big teeth and his trainer was saying, ‘Go for it, make me believe it.’”

The incident ends Diggs’ budding law enforcement career.  Heartbroken, Shane campaigns to have his former partner retired to domestic life at his own home, but the department insists he’s state property and locks him in a cage.

It’s there, alone and at his lowest point, Diggs gets a second chance most mutts can only dream about: an offer from elite canine protection agency DOG.  They’ve been watching Diggs and think he’s got what it takes to be a good agent—but only if he drops the lone wolf act and learns to work with the pack.

The Top Dogs at DOG: Canine HQ

“We sniff more butts before 6:00 A.M. than most dogs sniff all day.”

Down in the subterranean base of DOG HQ, the nexus of worldwide canine operations, it’s business as usual: dogs watching surveillance monitors, breaking code, building and testing new equipment, and working out.  Diggs struggles to take it all in.

“He’s our eyes and ears in this scene.  Diggs shares the audience’s point of view.  As he’s introduced to the wonders of this place, so are we,” says Lazar. We are also introduced to the DOG pack: leader Lou, gadget hound Peek, veteran agent Sam and alpha agent Butch, who is about to become Diggs’ reluctant partner.

Lou, a bespectacled Beagle voiced by Neil Patrick Harris, was once the pup trainee from “Cats & Dogs.”  Now a proud papa with a litter of his own, he’s top dog at HQ.   “He takes the job very seriously.  Lou assigns the missions.  He’s also like the watch commander, saying ‘let’s go, let’s get this done,’” says Harris.
“You can’t have an ego when you’re doing this,” he concedes, not specifically about portraying a dog, but about voice acting in general.  “You’re asked, ‘Can you say it this way?’  ‘That way?’  ‘Can you say it like you’re younger?’  ‘Older?’  You do a hundred different readings and it really becomes a chance to be creative.  Ultimately, Lou’s voice is pretty much my own, but with more of an official, businesslike tone.”

Nick Nolte, who voices the gruff Anatolian Shepherd Butch, adds, “Since it’s a human story played out by dogs, you have to think in human terms—meaning, Butch is primarily a cop.  He’s an old-timer, he’s been around and has a certain loping pace.  Diggs wants to be heroic and that’s probably how Butch was when he was younger so he tolerates him, but at this stage he really doesn’t want the hassle of being saddled with the new recruit.”

Meanwhile, watching everyone’s back is Peek, a resourceful Chinese Crested with a keen nose among noses, the agency’s tech and communications expert.  Much like Bond’s Q, Peek has a gizmo for every occasion.  “Peek is the geek,” quips Joe Pantoliano, reprising his role from the first film as the voice of the tiny technician.  “He’s always at the center of things in the lab, developing gadgets the dogs use in the field.

“It’s amazing how sophisticated the talking-animal technology has become,” he observes.  “I used to love watching ‘Mr. Ed’ because it was never in sync.  When the horse talked, it looked like they just gave him something to chew on.  We’ve come a long way.”

Also reprising his original role is Michael Clarke Duncan as the voice of stalwart Sheepdog Sam.  Sam can hardly see through the thatch of hair over his eyes, causing his feline adversaries to underestimate him, but this veteran DOG agent can hear the crunch of kibble or the click of tiny claws a mile away. “I have a cat and three dogs, so this probably goes on at my house,” says Duncan, of the ongoing campaign between Sam and his pack against their lifelong foes.
But all that could change when Kitty Galore hones her master plan to purr-fection.

The Threat: Kitty Galore

“The age of the dog as man’s so-called best friend is over!
In 48 hours I shall unleash The Call of the Wild.”

“I don’t think Kitty is misunderstood; she’s just evil,” Bette Midler states, confessing, “I like her a lot.  She’s great.  Villains are the most fun to play, they’re so over-the-top and usually the silliest.  Here you have a wonderful combination of evil and absolute ridiculousness, which is irresistible.”

A former MEOWS agent, Kitty went rogue after losing all her fur in a depilatory vat that she fell into while trying to escape guard dogs at a cosmetics lab.  Shunned by the human family who no longer recognized her, she landed on the street.  Now a few hacks shy of a hairball, Kitty is one sour puss bent on avenging her losses on a grand scale.

Creating her cadence and vocal mannerisms was a process based both on looks and back-story, Midler explains.  “You start with a sketch.  In time, the sketch gets increasingly life-like and fleshed out until the creature is right there in front of you and sort of tells you what its voice should sound like.  Kitty has gigantic eyes and very sharp, pointed little teeth.  She seems refined so I tried to make her sound like a well-bred cat with a bad nature.  She was obviously once a star and her stardom was snatched away from her so now she’s quite bitter and, as the title says, wants revenge.

“Having fun with it is key,” Midler continues.  “Kitty gets whacked out sometimes and sputters because her mind is racing faster than she can talk.”
Of course, anyone taking over the world knows it can’t be done in a day.  It requires a fair amount of scheming and one or two ominous announcements of intent.  It also requires a safe place to prepare.  Kitty’s cover is a carnival magic act alongside human patsy Chuck the Magnificent, a man whose enthusiasm for his profession is matched only by his staggering incompetence.

Jack McBrayer, who plays Chuck, admits his character “ain’t the sharpest knife in the drawer.  In the continuing struggle for dominance between cats and dogs, Chuck is just one of the obstacles.  He certainly gets in Kitty’s way.  Even worse, he insists on working her into his act, with the most embarrassing costumes.” Such unspeakable indignities make Kitty all the more determined to turn the tables on Chuck and his kind once she seizes rightful control of the planet.

The Strategy… and the Secret Weapon: Mr. Tinkles

“The last bird who stood this close to me… well, I enjoyed his company with
a plate of Fancy Feast and a nice saucer of milk.”

In the face of such sweeping peril, cats and dogs must join forces.  Thus, Butch and Diggs find their nascent partnership has grown to include MEOWS operative Catherine, who bravely puts all nine of her lives on the line with them, to bring Kitty down.

Describing the edgy alliance, Christina Applegate says of her character, “She’s a tough, smart, fearless cat, raised with the stereotypical distaste for dogs, but she’s willing to open up and take this chance.  They’re working together for a common goal but are still a little bit at each other’s throats from the get-go.”

Screenwriting partners Ron J. Friedman and Steve Bencich originally envisioned a slightly different dynamic, but love how the story evolved.  Says Bencich, “We started off wanting to do a buddy cop movie, pairing the old pro, Butch, with the younger upstart dog.  But as it developed, we decided to bring in a cat and it became more about teamwork.”
“There were a lot of discussions about scale and we’d get on our hands and knees and run around, just acting it out.  We’re very much into method writing,” adds Friedman.
The improbable inter-species task force soon grows from a trio to a quartet with the addition of gregarious pigeon Seamus, voiced by Katt Williams.  Seamus recently caught a bird’s-eye view of some top-secret technology Kitty Galore wants to cover up, and now there’s a price on his beak.  The number one informant on Kitty’s elusive plans, he is taken into protective custody—more or less—and becomes an unofficial member of the team.

Will Seamus talk?  Oh, sure.   Just try getting him to shut up. But even with the stool pigeon’s intel and their best agents on the case, the leaders of MEOWS and DOG fear it may not be enough.  To get inside Kitty’s twisted mind they’ll have to talk to someone equally twisted: Mr. Tinkles, now under heavy guard in the canine corridor at Alcatraz.

Reprising the role of the ferocious feline is Sean Hayes, who was surprised at how easy it was to get back into the character he made famous in “Cats & Dogs.” “I remembered the voice instantly,” says Hayes. “Then I checked YouTube to see if there were any clips of Mr. Tinkles and, sure enough, there were.  There were a few homages, too.  It’s pretty cool.”
Hayes also quickly embraced the “Silence of the Lambs” parody proposed by the filmmakers for Tinkles’ dramatic reintroduction, ad-libbing the infamous Chianti reference.  He says, “We went all the way with it, a mask with bars and him all trussed up.  Hannibal Lecter is the number one villain of all time, classic, so any time you can mock that it’s going to be fun.  The idea of cats working with dogs clearly doesn’t compute in Mr. Tinkles’ brain.  It doesn’t sit well with him at all and it’s probably something he’s dying to put right if he ever breaks free.”

Still, Tinkles offers the team a vital clue… unless he’s just toying with them.

Animals, Animatronics & Computer Animation

“When I say ‘Wag your tail,’ you ask ‘How hard?’”

With the exception of bird-brained Seamus and Kitty’s fearsome henchcat, Paws, the film’s leading four-legged roles are all played by flesh-and-fur animals—in combination with their animatronic doppelgangers and computer animation.  Nevertheless, Andrew Lazar says, “Audiences shouldn’t be aware of what’s real and what isn’t.  The technology has advanced in leaps and bounds since the effects in “Cats & Dogs” which were cutting-edge a decade ago.”

“Every shot has its complexity, with multiple layers requiring follow-up, so it’s been a fairly labor-intensive effort,” says Peyton of the project’s inherent challenges.  “But that also meant I had more toys to play with.”

Though often claiming that he has little patience, the director’s commitment, plus his experience in stop-motion animation, suggests otherwise.  In an unexpected way, that background proved helpful for his first time working with animals—the starting point for the entire process.  “Animation teaches you to think through all the aspects of a scene in a way you don’t need to think about when directing people.  People are aware of their eye-lines and motivation, they process the scene on their own; whereas, with animated characters and, I’ve learned, with animals, you have to do all of that for them.”

However, he acknowledges, the rewards are enormous, especially in that many of the film’s stars and supporting players were former shelter animals that he and renowned animal trainer Boone Narr discovered.  Among those that Narr adopted and coached for the film are the tuxedo cat that plays Tab Lazenby, one of the Shepherds cast as Diggs, two Sheepdogs that tag-teamed as Sam, and four very sociable grey cats of unknown breed that rotated in the Catherine role after being found sharing a cage at a pet expo in Southern California.

“I was amazed at how well the cats take direction,” Peyton says.  “If I put my cat on a leash, he’d just stare at me.  Boone’s cats walk on leash, stay, and hit their marks.  I was a little wary at first about what to expect.  He said, ‘We can get just as much from a cat as we can from a dog,’ and I thought, ‘Yeah, sure.’  But it’s absolutely true.”
“A big surprise for me was seeing how one of the dogs playing Diggs looked disappointed at break time.  He seemed sincerely bummed out that he wasn’t being called to the set,” says Johnsen.

Narr and his 20-member team trained approximately 100 animals for the film, under the supervision of an American Humane Association rep and according to guidelines that his company, Boone’s Animals for Hollywood, helped to establish.

Chris O’Donnell, whose character shares scenes with Diggs, recalled the old adage about never working with children or animals, saying, “My first shot involved a baby and a dog.  The dog has to go over to a crib, pull a blanket up over the baby and walk away, and all I have to do is say a line.  I’m thinking, ‘the baby is perfect, the dog is perfect…if I can’t get this right on the first take I’m going to look really bad.’  It was a lot of pressure!”

Animatronic effects supervisor Dave Barclay, a “Cats & Dogs” alumnus, considers his creations stunt doubles for the animal actors that can step in to accomplish the physically impossible.  For the hero dog Diggs, he says, “The puppet has a plug under his chest so I can lie on the floor and reach my arm up into his head.  Also, there are rods in his head so he can be controlled by puppeteers that will be in the shot but later removed by the digital crew.”
His most complex creature was the puppet for Mr. Tinkles, which Barclay calls “the most sophisticated animatronic cat every built.”  Using a technique he invented, called the Outabody System, consisting of as many as 80 input channels and 76 cables connecting the puppet’s face to a computer keyboard, the puppeteer can control expressions through a glove.  Barclay compares it to “playing a musical instrument.”

Paws, a metal-toothed monster modeled on a Maine Coon cat is the film’s only fully animatronic character.  It required five puppeteers to animate.
The only other principal player without a live counterpart is the chatty stool pigeon Seamus, wholly rendered by computer because, says visual effects producer Randy Starr, “He’s a great little character that does things pigeons just can’t do.”

“In the first film, there were a couple of scenes in which characters became CG because they were doing something extraordinary, like martial arts combat.  This movie has several sequences like that, it’s much more action-oriented,” adds Starr.

Another advancement in “Cats & Dogs: The Revenge of Kitty Galore” is the number of animals appearing together.  Since each has a dedicated trainer and performs one specific action in a scene, they can’t have a lot of distractions.  A crowded space with frenetic activity, such as the bustling main floor of DOG headquarters, would be almost impossible to capture.  So the filmmakers opted for multiple passes of the same shot, with one or two animals grouped at a time, then joined into a whole.  “When you see 20 or 30 dogs in a scene, that could be as many as 20 or 30 passes,” Starr tallies.  “For the DOG entrance, we got 53 individual pieces of film that I then married together in the computer.”
Director of photography Steven Poster explains, “We set up a camera that repeats the action over and over.  We did the main shot of the two hero dogs walking in and then put groups into different spaces—here, there, crossing in the foreground.  It took an entire day for that one shot but it was worth it to have this view of a huge set filled with animals all doing things at the same time.”

Poster worked remotely and via crane as much as possible, to cede space, and focus, to the animals and their trainers.

Designing a Pet-Centric World

Where a jacket with tails really means… a jacket with tails.

Brad Peyton and production designer Rusty Smith agreed that DOG headquarters should have a large central area that offers viewers an immediate sense of its depth and energy.  “The bulk of it is contained in one very large subdivided central area that opens from the rocket car dock,” notes Smith.

When Diggs first arrives with Butch, the large view simultaneously takes in a gym, with dogs training on treadmills, and a bathroom, which consists of a row of fire hydrants.  From there, a U-turn reveals the lab and, above it all, Lou’s office.  Smith describes the décor, complete with NORAD-like surveillance monitors, as “a little retro, with a nod toward spy movies, and a lot of cool, small-scale furniture.”

Acknowledging cats’ affinity for small, enclosed hideaways, Smith based the MEOWS headquarters on the popular cat condo design.  It was particularly challenging because of its small scale, only 6-to-8 feet high, and spherical shape.  “Everyone had to crouch down to work in it,” he laughs.  At the same time, he had to be mindful of leaving enough access for the puppeteers to maneuver, with raised platforms or other creative access routes on all the sets, wherever possible. The crew especially had fun with creative prop ideas, littering both sets with items like dog- and cat-treat vending machines and customized computer keyboards.

For one of the major set pieces, Mr. Tinkles’ big prison scene, Smith accompanied Brad Peyton and the screenwriters to Alcatraz for a sense of its layout and tone.  Because filming there is prohibited, they shot exteriors at Riverview, near Vancouver, Canada, to double for the facility’s outer wall, and built the interior set on a stage.

Costumes for the animal actors further extended the theme that it was business-as-usual in this realm where cats and dogs rule.  The four-legged stars were appropriately decked out in a variety of workaday ensembles, from shirts and ties to lab coats and motorcycle jackets.   Costume designer Tish Monaghan refers to the wardrobe range as “the ridiculous to the sublime, with business wear at one end and Kitty Galore’s costumes and the miniature Hannibal Lecter outfit at the far end of the spectrum.”
With an emphasis on the animals’ comfort, Monaghan consulted the trainers and used a lot of soft and stretchy material, saying, “We wanted them to be able to shine with their personalities coming through and not be hampered by the clothing.”

Whenever we see the world where dogs and cats can be themselves and drop their pet pretense, Peyton wanted it to look as if it was entirely designed and built by them.  When they’re interacting in our world, they have to accommodate themselves to human scale and expectations, but it’s always with the implied knowledge that there is more going on than we are aware of, with our limited senses and human-centric perspective.

“What we wanted to do with this movie was deepen the mythology introduced in ‘Cats & Dogs,’ about a world of spies and counterspies and all the intrigue and drama playing out among our trusted household pets every day, while we think they’re napping,”

he says.  “But you don’t have to have seen ‘Cats & Dogs’ to be in on the joke.  ‘The Revenge of Kitty Galore’ is a stand-alone adventure.” It could also be, as Andrew Lazar suggests, “A wake-up call to those of us who share our lives with cats and dogs, to maybe think twice about what they’re really doing when we’re not around.”