That MARMADUKE movie

USA Today has now graced us with the first picture from the upcoming movie based on Brad Anderson's inexplicably long-running comic strip, Marmaduke.

"We've approached the movie like a John Hughes movie with dogs," director Tom Dey says. "The dog park is like high school for dogs. To make this kind of movie, you really have to understand that it is the dog's world and we just live in it."

That's right. Marmaduke = Ferris. That's an angle that never would've occurred to me. But then, that's why guys like Dey are making that fat Hollywood money. They lack that little glimmer of common sense and decency that prevents you or I from conceiving of such horrors as these.

"Marmaduke is a teenager, and he's trying to find his way in the world," Dey says. "It's a boy-meets-girl story, a coming-of-age and cautionary tale. My job as director is to try to place the audience inside this world."

I don't want to be placed inside that world, Mr. Dey. That world sounds like some sort of freakish hellscape to me, a plane of eternal torment populated by CGI great danes winking at CGI poodles while Yello's Oh Yeah plays on the soundtrack.

Got a tip for Monsters and Rockets? Want to contribute to the site? Send us an email.