10 Casting Choices That Will Make Or Break Upcoming Movies
3. Chris Pratt - Garfield (The Garfield Movie)
The Internet collectively groaned when Chris Pratt was cast as everyone's favourite lasagne-loving cartoon cat in The Garfield Movie, because as likeable as Pratt might be, it's just an incredibly obvious, lazy casting choice.
After rather divisively voicing Mario in last year's The Super Mario Bros. Movie, giving him the Garfield gig felt like Hollywood just accepting that's Pratt's inoffensive vocals are palatable to the masses, even if they're not particularly inspired.
Indeed, Pratt did a great job voicing Emmet in The Lego Movie films, but many have questioned his suitedness to a character as sarcastic as Garfield.
The trailer pretty much confirms that Pratt isn't doing anything different with his voice and more-or-less sounds just like himself, which feels odd for a character as iconic as this.
Bill Murray nailed the "Garfield voice" in the otherwise wretched live-action 2000s Garfield movies, but the skepticism around Pratt's flatter, more character-devoid work - and therefore the movie as a whole - is understandable.