On November 13th, a new trailer for Sony Pictures’ new animated adaptation of the Garfield comic strip was revealed online. Development of the film began back in 2016 and is now slated for release in the United States on May 24th, 2024.

The trailer opens with Garfield’s origin story. Jon Arbuckle, his future owner, is seen eating pasta alone by himself at an Italian restaurant. Baby Garfield, living in the alley as a stray cat, sees Jon at the restaurant and comes up to the window. Jon decides to give the kitten a bit of his meal, but Garfield instead slurps up the entire dish, making his insatiable appetite for tasty food evident immediately.. After going through several quick cuts of the cat eating everything in the restaurant, the trailer cuts to present-day Garfield, who continues to eat. However, Garfield’s new voice is finally revealed when Chris Pratt’s familiar voice says, “And that’s how I adopted Jon.”

The rest of the trailer is pretty standard stuff for a children’s animated comedy film, but the casting is what really got people talking about the film.

Many people like Chris Pratt and agree that he’s a pretty good actor. However, in terms of voice acting, that’s where issues arrive. Although most would agree he was cast well for the role of Emmet in The Lego Movie back in 2014, there was far more controversy over his casting as Mario in The Super Mario Brothers Movie released back in April. Chris Pratt, who many thought did not fit the voice of Mario whatsoever, was seen as simply a big name that would get people to come see it. Regardless of any skill he had in voice acting, it seemed evident that he was just cast as a name.

Now, it seems like the same thing has occurred with The Garfield Movie. Garfield is typically known as having a very low and lazy sounding voice. Chris Pratt’s voice is inherently very energetic, and it could be seen as very jarring to hear him voicing the famous cat character.

I made a survey to gauge the public opinion of Garfield’s new voice actor, and the results were mostly not in favor of Chris Pratt’s casting. When asked “Do you feel that Chris Pratt’s voice fits the Garfield character?” 32.4% of respondents answered “Yes” and 67.6% responded “No”. Further explanations offered by survey respondents include:
“[Garfield’s voice] needs to be more gurgly and lower”, “I feel like Chris Pratt’s voice is too excited/high pitched for the classic lazy Garfield, but is a good voice for children’s movies and comedy.”, “THAT’S NOT GARFIELD THAT’S JUST CHRIS PRATT”, “He is not fit for all these type of roles I need a man with a grumpy voice that wants lasagna”, and “Use the guy from garfield the show (rolling eyes emoji)”. One especially passionate respondent wrote,
“I feel Chris Pratt is hired for name recognition and not voice acting prowess. He is a great actor, but voice acting is an entirely different beast he is not ready to handle. I feel the voice fails for two reasons. 1: It goes against tradition. Garfield’s voice has existed since the show in the 80’s, and although it has varied over the years, each voice actor has done a great job fitting their voice to Garfield’s character. Garfield is a lazy, moody cat and every voice actor so far has reflected that in their vocal delivery. Which brings me to problem 2: Pratt is very natural in his delivery which, in comparison to the ones before him, makes Garfield’s voice too excited for his character. So no, I don’t like Chriss Pratt’s voice for Garfield.”
Some responses more in favor of Pratt’s voicing include:
“It was awesome!!! (sunglasses emoji)”, “His voice doesn’t fit the character well but I also can’t think of any better voice actors”, “He was cat Mario in the hit box office smash super Mario movie”, and “I hate Mondays”.
One anonymous survey respondent answered, “He’s done it again. Never before has there been a generational talent that can so perfectly mold their voice to fit any character, yet here Chris Pratt stands. People remember actors by how well they can disappear into their roles — how little you think of the person BEHIND the screen. Chris Pratt becomes nearly invisible in every project he is a part of. We are all truly blessed to be alive at a time to witness a true artisan honing their craft. – Andrew Kindler”
Regardless, a whole movie can’t just be judged on its first trailer. If you’d really like to see how Mr. Pratt does in his role, make sure to watch The Garfield Movie, coming soon to theaters May 24th.
Or don’t. Maybe you hate Garfield.