What’s more perfect than Rob Lowe, the face of 9-1-1: Lone Star, starring in a movie about finding a lost dog named Gonker?
And according to the plotline of the movie, Lowe and his son grow closer as they look for the beloved family pet.
Lowe is serving as executive producer and star in Dog Gone, which will stream on Netflix. The movie is based on a true story that sounds amazing. Here’s how Deadline described it:
According to Deadline, the premise is a warm and loving story. Many people join the rescue for Gonker. For context, Gonker can only live for a few days without his medication, so time is of the essence.
The movie also stars Johnny Berchtold and Kimberly Williams-Paisley. It was written by Emmy nominee Nick Santora of The Sopranos and Prison Break fame. And it’s all based on the beautiful book Dog Gone: A Lost Pet’s Extraordinary Journey and the Family Who Brought Him Home by Pauls Toutonghi. The author of the book was related by marriage to Gonker’s human family.
“Every family, it seems, has that single pet – the one that’s different from all the others – the one that somehow becomes enshrined in family lore,” Toutonghi wrote to open the book.
Next Season of 9-1-1: Lone Star Doesn’t Start Until 2022, Lowe Has Time for Other Projects
Lowe will start production on the movie later this month. It’s being filmed in Georgia. Soon, Lowe’s 9-1-1: Lone Star will be in its third season. However, the show won’t appear again early next year. So that gives Lowe some time for other projects. The movie is Lowe’s second for Netflix. He was part of Holiday in the Wild, which was one of Netflix’s most-watched movies of the year.
Meanwhile, here’s the true story of Dog Gone. Gonker’s family lost him back in 1998. They’d been hiking along the Appalachian Trail. Gonker, a golden retriever mix, suffered from Addison’s disease and couldn’t survive long without his medication.
He received monthly shots, so the family had about three weeks to find him. Gonker’s owner was Fielding Marshall. He’d rescued Gonker years before. Gonker came into his life right after his baby daughter died during heart surgery and after his girlfriend left him without saying good bye.
Marshall, his dad and Uli, the family’s other dog, searched for Gonker. And the search made national news. Fifteen days after Gonker disappeared, he was found, 111 miles from where he disappeared. Lots of us don’t like to watch movies that has the dog die. So this one has a happy ending.
Lowe loves these sorts of family stories with a father-son dynamic to them. On 9-1-1: Lone Star, Lowe plays Owen Strand. His son, T.K., moved with him from New York to Austin. T.K. (Ronin Rubenstein) is a fireman turned paramedic.
And 9-1-1: Lone Star also is a Lowe family affair. Lowe’s son, John Owen, is a writer on the show. And his brother, Chad, is a director on the series.