Chris Pratt to Voice Garfield in New Animated Feature

Chris Pratt is going to voice the lasagna-loving, Monday-hating comic strip cat Garfield in a new animated movie.

Andrew Kosove and Broderick Johnson’s Alcon Entertainment is behind the new Garfield, which has been picked up for worldwide (excluding China) release by Sony Pictures. The script written by Oscar nominee David Reynolds (Finding Nemo) is being directed by Mark Dindal (Chicken Little), with the duo having previously worked together on The Emperor’s New Groove.



Created by Jim Davis, Garfield debuted as a comic character first in 1978, with the lazy tabby cat often appearing alongside Jon Arbuckle, his human owner, and the lovable household dog Odie. Originally appearing in 41 newspapers, Garfield currently holds the record for being the most widely syndicated comic strip in the world.

Alcon acquired the rights from Davis, who will serve as an executive producer on the film, along with Bridget McMeel from Amuse and Craig Sost. John Cohen and Steven P. Wegner produce alongside Kosove and Johnson. DNEG Animation, which recently worked in the animated feature Ron’s Gone Wrong, will animate and produce the film. DNEG CEO Namit Malhotra and president Tom Jacomb are both serving as producers.

Garfield previously appeared on the big screen in live-action/animated hybrid Garfield in 2004 and its sequel, 2006’s Garfield: A Tail of Two Kitties. In these movies, both produced by 20th Century Fox, Bill Murray voiced the titular cat.

Pratt’s voice work includes the Lego Movie films and Pixar’s Onward, as well as the upcoming Super Mario Bros. animated movie from Universal and Nintendo, where he will be playing Mario. The actor, repped by UTA, Rise Management and Sloane Offer, was most recently seen in Amazon’s sci-fi feature The Tomorrow War and is due back in theaters with Jurassic World: Dominion.

Reynolds, who started his career on Late Night with Conan O’Brien, is repped by Gersh.

 
Chris Pratt will do all cartoon voices soon. Chris Pratt as The Simpsons.
 

Archive

On the one hand, Chris Pratt is a human being capable of speech—so on that front, he shouldn’t run into any hurdles as he prepares to voice Garfield in a new film adaptation of the long-running comic strip. On the other, does he really have the range to voice a lasagna-loving, Monday- hating, feline nap enthusiast?

The news broke, aptly enough, on a Monday. Emperor’s New Groove director Mark Dindal and screenwriter David Reynolds (also behind Mulan and Finding Nemo) will reunite to create a new Garfield movie adaptation with the Guardians of the Galaxy star in one of Hollywood’s strangest casting decisions in recent memory. What’s next, “Chris Pratt to Voice Mario”? Oh, wait…

Italian Americans and Nintendo fans stomped on Pratt’s Mario casting news like an errant Goomba in September, and the Garfield news already appears to have provoked similar skepticism. (Read: Mean tweets.) And for anyone who likes to stay up to date on their Hollywood Chris news and notes, it’s not hard to guess why.

In 2014, Pratt had successfully rebranded: The beloved oaf from Parks and Rec kicked off his year with a spectacular turn as another lovable dummy in The Lego Movie before solidifying his status as a bona fide movie star with Guardians of the Galaxy. The latter catalyzed a career evolution, almost certainly aided by Hollywood’s adoration for a weight-loss “success” story. The next year, Pratt debuted Jurassic World—a decent, uneven franchise extension that nonetheless devoured the box office.

But just like Jennifer Lawrence, who starred alongside Pratt in the 2016 clunker Passengers, Pratt’s journey from national sweetheart to overexposed object of frustration came swiftly. Last year, a bevy of Marvel stars found it necessary to defend the actor online—after he lost yet another round of the aforementioned Hollywood Chris power rankings. (Pratt has reliably lost these games for years.)

There’s also the fact that Pratt is apparently a member of Hillsong—an evangelical church that, as Juno star Elliot Page pointed out in 2019, also happens to be savagely anti-LGBTQ. The actor has also stepped out in a “Don’t Tread on Me” shirt. (The snake iconography originated with the Revolutionary War but is now mostly favored by right-wing and gun-rights groups.) Pratt’s social media follows, which include right-wing troll Ben Shapiro, PragerU and Turning Point USA, have also raised eyebrows.

But back to the Garfield thing: Even putting aside his questionable politics, would anyone actually be willing to argue that Pratt is a persona or personality fit for the role? Really? Name a person with bigger Odie energy than this man! (That was rhetorical—if you do think of one, please don’t email me about it.) Can Chris Pratt really do “wry” like that? Then again, maybe this is all part of the cosmic balance: Bill Murray signed on for the 2014 Garfield movie somewhat by accident—he mistook screenwriter Joel Cohen’s name for Joel Coen of the Coen brothers—so maybe this is just what happens when someone tries to fill those big orange shoes. (Er, paws.)
 
Is there, like, nobody else in Hollywood? It's a pandemic, jobs need to be distributed fairly!

Jesus, you gotta have a lump of coal for a brain if you work in the movie industry and think the beige paint of comic strips with Chris Pratt would have people orgasming in the cinemas. It's like directors look around their apartments for inspiration.

"Fuck me, a phoned in 3-panel comic that nearly put me to sleep just reading it? Nobodies' thought of that one since the last time it sucked!

To the Oscarmobile!"
 
Back