The whimsical tale by Dr. Seuss is coming soon to the big screen! This time in a reimagined animated form. Helmed by Alessandro Carloni and Erica Rivinoja, this marks “The Cat in the Hat“‘s animated theatrical feature film debut. The Movie Couple was invited, along with other journalists, to participate in the virtual press conference. In attendance were Bill Hader (voice of The Cat in the Hat/Executive Producer), directors Alessandro Carloni and Erick Rivinoja, and President of WB Animation Bill Damaschke.
What Is “The Cat in the Hat” About?
The Cat in the Hat takes on his toughest assignment yet for the I.I.I.I. (Institute for the Institution of Imagination and Inspiration, LLC): to cheer Gabby and Sebastian, a pair of siblings struggling with their move to a new town. Known for taking things too far, this could be this agent of chaos’s last chance to prove himself…or lose his magical hat!
The Cast of “The Cat in the Hat”
Bill Hader will start as the titular character, the Cat in the Hat. Alongside Hader are Xochitl Gomez, Matt Berry, Quinta Brunson, and Paula Pell, and featuring Tiago Martinez, Giancarlo Esposito, America Ferrera, Bowen Yang, and Tituss Burgess.
WB Animation President Bill Damaschke talks about introducing a new era of reimagined WB Pictures animation, with “The Cat in the Hat” as the first theatrical feature, “Animation’s always been like a cornerstone of Warner Bros. but in this this next chapter called Warner Bros. Pictures Animation, we’re really kind of like doubling down on that commitment to original stories as well as really innovative takes on some of our beloved characters and worlds.” Damaschke goes on to say, “The Cat in the Hat” is the perfect first project:
“And for The Cat in the Hat to be our first film just seems like the perfect, perfect project because it’s actually all of those things at the same time. It’s a completely original take on a character that I think a lot of people have a connection to, but as kind of handled and brought to life by our filmmakers and by the very singular actor who plays the cat. It just comes out in a way that’s bigger, better, more amazing, and more whimsical than you could ever imagine.
The president also hints at what’s coming down the pipeline for WB Pictures animation, “We have a slate of great films that we’re curating, and I’m really excited about them.”
The Filmmakers On Keeping the Heart of the Original Story
Directors Erica Rivinoja and Alessandro Carloni discuss how they incorporated elements that people loved about the original book and using the film to expand the story.
Erica Rivinoja: The Cat in the Hat is a very beloved character, and he’s classic and iconic, and everyone has a relationship to him because he’s really this sort of wish fulfillment character. We call him this agent of chaos. And it’s just sort of what every kid loves and wants is to just sort of have this day of craziness and chaos. And we really tried to bring in what people love about the original book, which is a cat shows up, everybody goes crazy and has fun.
Alessandro Carloni: We kind of used the book as a jumping point for us in the sense that the book became a question for us, which is, is this cat really just out there to have a good time for himself and making a mess, or is there more to it? We look at the book and realize that at the end of the book, the kid seems to be a little more confident with himself. Could it be that the cat is actually the greatest child psychologist? And so we basically used the book as our starting point, that’s how our movie starts, and then our movie becomes an expansion on that adventure. We decided to follow the cat at the end of the book to find out where does this guy go and discover, in fact, the truth about him.
Bill Hader On Voicing The Cat in the Hat
Bill Hader is no stranger to voiceover work, lending his voice to films such as “Inside Out” and “IF”. It also wouldn’t be the first time the actor crossed paths with the Dr. Seuss character, having portrayed him in a sketch on SNL. Hader speaks on voicing the titular character, improv, and whether playing the character on SNL helped with finding the inspiration.
Bill Hader: Well, yeah, I mean maybe a little just because they were so loose with [the script], they wrote this incredibly funny script and so you didn’t have, you know, sometimes you do these things and you’re like, “oh man I gotta like really improvise a lot and try to make it work somehow” but this was not like that. The script was so insanely funny, and then on top of that, they were like, “yeah, try stuff.” So there was some little improvs here and there.
Alessandro Carloni recalls a specific scene where Hader created the sound of voices moving forward and backward.
AC: Don’t give anything away, but there is one scene in which the character has to literally move backward in time, and usually we use filters and digital techniques to rewind voices, but he’s able to create the sound of a voice moving forward, warping and playing backward, that we had to tell our animators that’s actually Bill Hader.
Hader also spoke about reading the book when he was younger.
BH: I’m a big reader and I think those were the first books I remember reading on my own, you know, and just taking into. It’s a habit I had. I get in bed and you read a book, you know, and it’s like I started that with those books, and I remember collecting them. I had you know seeing the binder, you know, the binding that side and just, having those all up in my room and, so yeah, that’s like the beginning of that process as a kid and then you know see my kids have that and then you know you get up to young adult books.
A Look at Thing 1 and 3 In the Trailer
The trailer offers a glimpse at Thing 1 and 3 in the trailer. While Thing 2 was not spotted in the trailer, there will be multiple Thing characters, varying in height and shape. Rivinoja comments that they will be consistent with the Things you meet in the book, “They are not well-behaved, I will say. They are consistent with the things that you meet in the book. And as you saw in the trailer, we have Thing 1, but we also have Thing 3, and many, many more.”
Rivinoja notes that though chaotic in nature, the Things are incredibly adorable, “I love how cute they are. So you get all that chaos from them, but you’re still like, oh, you’re cute.”
Comedy For All
With the movie targeted towards a family-friendly audience, the filmmakers wanted to ensure that the comedic moments were not only for younger viewers.
ER: I think the important part for [Alessandro] and I was definitely, we wanted to make ourselves laugh with it. We have long histories in comedy, and I think a lot of people can think that, oh, it’s children’s, it’s for children, so you have to talk down and make it not sophisticated and smart, but we wanted to make it really, really fun for literally the whole family. There’s some sneaky stuff in there for adults, and there’s really funny physical humor for everyone because everyone loves it. There’s a lot of very classy fart jokes
“The Cat in the Hat” is set to arrive in theaters on February 27, 2026.
