New ‘Garfield’ Movie Coming Soon With Chris Pratt Playing the Iconic Cat

It might be hard for children to tell the difference between Mario and Garfield in the future. That’s because Chris Pratt was cast as the lazy, lasagna-loving tabby cat in a new animated movie, just weeks after he was cast to star in an animated Super Mario Bros. movie. The new Garfield movie will be produced by Alcon Entertainment and released by Sony Pictures, reports The Hollywood Reporter.

Garfield will be made by a team of Disney alums, including writer David Reynolds (Finding Nemo) and director Mark Dindnal (Chicken Little). Dindal and Reynolds also worked on The Emperor’s New Groove together. Dindal was also an animator on Wonder Park and is a writer on the untitled Funko film. Reynolds was nominated for the Best Original Screenplay Oscar for his work on Finding Nemo.

Jim Davis created Garfield in 1978, and the character has become one of the most well-known and widely-distributed comic strip characters in the world. The other characters in the Garfield strip include the cat’s owner, Jon Arbuckle, and Jon’s dog Odie. Bill Murray voiced the cat in the movies Garfield (2004) and Garfield: A Tail of Two Kitties (2006), which were both produced by 20th Century Fox and can be found on Disney+. Those movies were both animation/live-action hybrids.

Alcon picked up the film rights to Garfield from Davis, who is an executive producer on the movie. John Cohen and Steven P. Wegner are producing with Alcon’s Andrew Kosove and Broderick Johnson. Bridget McMeel from Amuse and Craig Sost are also executive producers. DNEG Animation, which made Ron’s Gone Wrong, is the animation studio on Garfield.

Pratt has become a popular actor for animated productions to enlist to bring in some star power. He voiced Emmet in The Lego Movie and its sequel, as well as Barley Lightfoot in Pixar’s Onward. He is set to voice Mario in Illimunation’s upcoming Super Mario Bros. movie, with Anya Taylor-Joy as Princess Peach. Universal will release the Mario movie on Dec. 21, 2022. Pratt also stars in front of the camera in Thor: Love and Thunder, which opens on July 8, 2022; and Jurassic World: Dominion, which hits theaters on June 10, 2022. He will play Peter Quill/Star-Lord again in Guardians of the Galaxy, Vol. 3, which opens on May 5, 2023. Pratt sure has come a long way from sitting on Rashia Jones’ couch after falling in a pit.