Heads up, Garfield fans! One of your favourite Chris’s will be playing the iconic lazy cat himself!
On Monday the 1st of November Sony Pictures and Alcon Entertainment announced that in their remake of the Garfield movies, Chris Pratt would be voicing the famous comic strip character, the latest in a series of voice work that Pratt has been cast for.
Pratt himself took to Instagram, posting a picture of the lasagne-loving feline and wittily captioned it ‘Well this Monday doesn’t suck…’
The rest of the cast is yet to be announced, but there is a stellar production and writing team behind the project that promises to make the production a big hit. Jim Davis, the comic strip’s original creator will be a producer, and the scriptwriter, Dvid Reynolds, was on the Finding Nemo scriptwriting team also. What’s more, the movie is to be directed by Mark Dindal, who directed The Emperor’s New Groove – so all in all a pretty talented and iconic team!
Garfield has seen several incarnations over the years, starting out as a comic strip in the late seventies that quickly gained popularity and traction, leading to him getting his own film in 2004 starring Breckin Meyer and Jennifer Love Hewitt. This version of Garfield was voiced by Bill Murray and portrayed the lazy feline’s life with beloved owner John Arbuckle and ‘annoying’ puppy sidekick Odie.
Given that Pratt’s performance is to follow that of Bill Murray, you could say he has big shoes to fill, but since Pratt’s vocal talents have recently been lent to the Lego movies, Onwards and more recently, the newly announced Super Mario Bros movie, we have every confidence he’ll pull this one out of the bag.
There has, however, been some online controversy surrounding his Super Mario casting, with many critics sceptical of Pratt as a casting choice. The casting was announced in September, listing Jack Black as playing Bowser and Charlie Day playing Luigi, but it’s Pratt that most people seem to have a problem with. One critic called for Danny DeVito to be re-cast as Mario, while other social media accounts called the casting choice ‘Italiaphobia’.
Regardless of the Super Mario controversy, we’re sure Pratt will pull off the perfect lazy but lovable Garfield when the film hits cinemas in 2023!
