After recently being cast as Mario in a new animated movie, Chris Pratt looks set to dominate all of our beloved and iconic cartoon characters – as he has now been cast as everyone’s favourite Monday-hating, lasagna-loving cat – Garfield. The movie will be distributed worldwide by Sony Pictures.
The script is set to be written by Oscar nominee David Reynolds (Finding Nemo) and is being directed by Mark Dindal (Chicken Little), who previously worked together on Disney’s Emperor’s New Groove.
Garfield comic strips, created by Jim Davis, first started appearing in newspapers in 1978. There have been several animated TV series based on the comics, including Garfield and Friends, which ran from 1988-1994. In this show, Garfield was voiced by Lorenzo Music, who also voiced Peter Venkman in The Real Ghostbusters – meaning that those of us of a certain age have a powerful attachment to Garfield’s voice sounding a certain way.
There are currently a whole host of more recent Garfield TV series on Netflix including The Garfield Show, Garfield Gets Real, Garfield’s Pet Force and Garfield’s Fun Fest – proving that the large orange feline is more popular now than ever.
Jim Davis will executive produce the new movie, which is being made by DNEG Animation – the studio behind this year’s release Ron’s Gone Wrong.
As well as being ubiquitous on the small screen, Garfield has appeared on the big screen before – in 2004’s Garfield and its sequel Garfield: A Tale of Two Kitties (2006). On those two occasions, he was voiced by Bill Murray (there’s that Venkman connection) – again, this will be a powerful association that some people have with the voice of Garfield.
As well as playing Star Lord in the Marvel movies and Owen Grady in the Jurassic World franchise, Chris Pratt has been making quite a side-career as a voice actor. He plays the central character of Emmet in the Lego Movie films and also appeared in Pixar’s 2020 movie Onward. His recent casting as Mario in the Super Mario Bros animated movie caused quite a stir on social media.