You Won’t Believe Some of the Voices in ‘The Garfield Movie’

Most actors are lucky if they get to play one iconic character known by basically every human being on Earth. Chris Pratt already has Mario from Super Mario Bros. under his belt, and now he’s adding the world’s most famous lasagna-eating cat Garfield to his resume. If you want a big name actor to play a really well-known character in an animated movie based on something else, you get Pratt.

This new animated Garfield movie — the last franchise based on the long-running comic strip was a live-action / animation hybrid, with Bill Murray providing Garfield’s voice — features Pratt and a shockingly good voice cast, including Hannah Waddingham, Ving Rhames, Nicholas Hoult, Cecily Strong, Harvey Guillén, Brett Goldstein, Bowen Yang, Snoop Dogg (as a cat, tee hee) and, of all people, Samuel L. Jackson as Garfield’s vagabond cat thief father.

Please do not ask me if Garfield canonically has a vagabond cat thief dad or if that is something they invented for this movie. I honestly do not know. I honestly do not want to know! Let’s take a look at The Garfield Movie trailer...

I know people were initially upset about Pratt’s casting in The Super Mario Bros. Movie because he was not Italian and really didn’t sound like Mario’s signature voice from the game (provided for many years by Charles Martinet). I hope those folks are equally outraged here. Pratt isn’t even a cat!

Here is The Garfield Movie’s official synopsis:

Garfield (voiced by Chris Pratt), the world-famous, Monday-hating, lasagna-loving indoor cat, is about to have a wild outdoor adventure! After an unexpected reunion with his long-lost father – scruffy street cat Vic (voiced by Samuel L. Jackson) – Garfield and his canine friend Odie are forced from their perfectly pampered life into joining Vic in a hilarious, high-stakes heist.

The Garfield Movie is scheduled to open in theaters on May 24, 2024.