Good Boy spoilers follow.
When the first trailer for Good Boy landed, Google searches spiked 2000% for "does the dog die in Good Boy". Now, it's not hard to get such a steep climb for something that wouldn't have really been searched before, but it does still show that people really wanted to know the fate of Indy, the titular good boy.
It's entirely possible that it's a dealbreaker for movie lovers who are happy enough to see fictional human characters perish on screen, but draw the line when it comes to animals. So now that Good Boy is out now in UK cinemas, we have the answer if you don't care about spoilers.
Still with us? We're happy to report that the dog does not die in Good Boy. Indy is still alive when the credits roll, but that doesn't mean Indy escapes completely unscathed – certainly not emotionally anyway.
The movie might not commit the ultimate sin of killing off Indy, but he does go through a lot in Good Boy. At one point, poor Indy gets so scared by one intense experience that he wees a little, and other sequences see him being treated very badly by both his owner and malevolent forces.
It's also worth noting that while Indy doesn't die, there is a ghost dog in the movie too who did die, but before the events of the movie. We are shown the dog's corpse though, even if we don't see him actually die.
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Indy is played by director Ben Leonberg's actual real-life dog, so don't worry, he wasn't mistreated on set, however, traumatic things get for the fictional Indy. "The 'scary' scenes were always the most fun for Indy and the most creatively fulfilling for me," Leonberg told Bloody Disgusting in an email interview.
"What looks like frightened barking or paralysing fear onscreen is, in reality, Indy staring down a treat or a tennis ball just off camera that he really wants. (And which he got as soon as we 'cut'.) Thanks to the magic of filmmaking and juxtaposition of disparate shots (the Kuleshov Effect), the audience projects their own emotions onto those puppy-dog eyes."
Leonberg was also fully aware that audiences would be so invested in Indy's fate that they'd spoil the movie for themselves before seeing it, precisely by reading articles like the one you're reading now.
"In movies, you can kill off thousands of people, beloved figures, even kids, and audiences will barely flinch," he added. "But touch a single hair on a dog's head and people will lose their minds!"
Good Boy is out now in cinemas.
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Movies Editor, Digital Spy Ian has more than 10 years of movies journalism experience as a writer and editor. Starting out as an intern at trade bible Screen International, he was promoted to report and analyse UK box-office results, as well as carving his own niche with horror movies, attending genre festivals around the world. After moving to Digital Spy, initially as a TV writer, he was nominated for New Digital Talent of the Year at the PPA Digital Awards. He became Movies Editor in 2019, in which role he has interviewed 100s of stars, including Chris Hemsworth, Florence Pugh, Keanu Reeves, Idris Elba and Olivia Colman, become a human encyclopedia for Marvel and appeared as an expert guest on BBC News and on-stage at MCM Comic-Con. Where he can, he continues to push his horror agenda – whether his editor likes it or not.
