The most excellent basketball-playing dog of all time is making a comeback as Air Bud Returns begins its Vancouver production today.
Considering the last film in the Air Bud franchise, Air Bud: Spikes Back (a volleyball film), was released in 2003, an exhaustive search took place to cast the titular pooch.
Variety reported that producers had to sift through 5,000 dogs to cast its two leading pups. You can learn more about that process over at Air Bud TV.
The UBCP/ACTRA active production website states that production began today and is expected to wrap sometime around Nov. 21, 2025.
It should come as no surprise that the latest film in the franchise is being filmed around Metro Vancouver, considering that most of the movies in the Air Bud universe were at least partially filmed in the region.
That includes the original Air Bud, which was filmed 28 years ago and released in 1997. The original film didn’t do amazingly well at the box office, nor did Buddy, the star pooch of the first movie, wow critics with its acting or performance on the court.
The original holds a 48 per cent rating on Rotten Tomatoes, and an even lower user score of 38 per cent.
“Dubious highlights include the dog wearing two pairs of basketball shoes and eating a frightening amount of vanilla pudding,” said Lisa Alspector in her review for the Chicago Reader.
Amelia Navascues of Triple J saw it differently, with a positive review, asking, “Who wouldn’t love a story about a homeless golden retriever who runs away from his alcoholic clown for a father, Norm, to shoot hoops?”
One of the user reviews states, “No animals were harmed. Just the viewers.”
Air Bud joins many other productions that are ramping up in and around the city this fall, including the sequel to The Social Network, which has some big names attached to it, but is missing one key actor.
We also recently learned that Scrubs was making a comeback and being filmed in the city.
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