Chris Pratt Has Been Cast As The Voice Of ‘Garfield,’ And People Are Having A Surprising Amount Of Feelings

In Zombieland, Bill Murray famously joked that voicing Garfield (twice!) was his biggest regret. But clearly that didn’t bother his one-episode Parks and Recreation co-star Chris Pratt. According to The Hollywood Reporter, the sometimes beleaguered Marvel star has signed on to voice the comic strip world’s most grouchy feline, who has hated Mondays and loved lasagna for over 43 years and counting.

Details about the new film are still thin on the ground, but it does come from respectable pedigree. The attached screenwriter, David Reynolds, co-wrote Finding Nemo, while its director, Mark Dindal, did the delightful Disney movie The Emperor’s New Groove. Perhaps they can mine riches from the premise of a lazy cat, his terminally single (and possibly depressed) owner, and his frenemy, a dog. (Maybe they’ll even bring in Nermal.)

Jim Davis’ strip, the most widely circulated in the world, has made it to screens before. There were a dozen TV specials from the ‘80s into the early ‘90s, and even a Saturday morning TV show. In the aughts, Garfield made it to the movies, voiced by Murray. In the role he later mocked, Murray took over for Lorenzo Music, the similar-sounding voice actor who had already voiced the animated version of him in the Ghostbusters daytime cartoon show.

And now there’s Pratt, who is already tied up with another animated film, voicing Mario the plumber in a take on the Nintendo character. The news inspired lots of people to question whether Pratt is the right man to voice a cat.

Others wanted Murray to come back, though that almost certainly ain’t happening, and not because he may be busy with the MCU.

(Via THR)