"I apologize in advance. The eating you are about to see will not be pretty. And if you have young children, this would be a good time for them to leave the room."
— Garfield, about to enjoy some lasagna.
The Garfield Movie is an upcoming 2024 animated comedy film based upon the iconic, long running comic strip by Jim Davis. It is directed by Mark Dindal and stars Chris Pratt as Garfield, Nicholas Hoult as Jon, Harvey Guillén as Odie, and Samuel L. Jackson as Garfield's father, Vic. Also starring are Cecily Strong, Ving Rhames, Hannah Waddingham, Brett Goldstein, Bowen Yang, and Snoop Dogg. DNEG provides the animation (and also co-produced the film as it's DNEG Animation's 4th feature film).
The film follows the beloved lasagna-loving, Monday-despising, dog-kicking orange cat as his perfect world is turned upside down by a chance encounter with his long-lost father, Vic. The film will release May 24, 2024. Not to be confused with the live-action/animation hybrid version released twenty years earlier, which was marketed as Garfield: The Movie.
Previews: Trailer 1
, Trailer 2, Trailer 3
The Garfield Movie contains examples of:
- Abusive Parents: Played for Laughs in the first trailer. While boarding a train with Garfield and Odie, Vic suddenly shoves the former out of it, sending poor Garfield flying through the air and slamming into several objects along the way, and to top it all off, he jokes about his son's predicament to Odie as he himself jumps out of the train as well.
- Actor Allusion: This isn't the first time Harvey Guillén played a happy-go-lucky dog.
- Adaptational Backstory Change: In the original comics, Garfield was born in the kitchen of an Italian restaurant and later sold to a pet shop, where Jon bought him. The trailers instead show him as a stray kitten outside an Italian restaurant, being spotted by Jon and taken in by him.
- Adapted Out: So far, Nermal and Arlene do not appear in any of the trailers or teasers despite them being important characters in the Garfield franchise.
- Affectionate Nickname: Well, as far as affectionate goes with Vic, who addresses his son as "junior" in the trailer.
- Air Quotes: Garfield uses them in the first trailer when introducing Odie to his "father".
- Alone Among the Couples: The first trailer shows a sad Jon eating alone at an Italian restaurant full of families and couples just before a kitten Garfield arrives at the window.
- Amazing Technicolor Wildlife: A large blue cat and a purple bull are shown in the second trailer.
- Ascended Meme: Garfield flies through a window upside down, much like a certain panel◊ from the comic strip.
- Big Eater: It wouldn’t be Garfield without his famous appetite. The first trailer shows a kitten Garfield being invited into an Italian restaurant and proceeding to eat most of the food in the place.
- Breaking the Fourth Wall: Garfield addresses the audience twice in the first trailer; once after the story of how he and Jon met ("...and that's how I adopted Jon."), and again as he apologizes before eating lasagna, as quoted above.
- Butt-Monkey: The first trailer makes it pretty clear that Garfield will be on the receiving end of a lot of slapstick this time, what with a montage of him being flung into various objects.
- Calling Parents by Their Name: In the first trailer, Garfield refers to his father Vic by name when introducing Odie to him, which is meant to emphasize Garfield's resentment of Vic.
- Canon Foreigner: Garfield's father never appeared, or was ever even mentioned, in the comic strip (save for a single mention of Garfield coming from "a long line of bachelors" on August 20, 1979) or any adaptations prior (save for Garfield's grandfather bringing him up in "Garfield on the Town"). Only in a few pieces of Father's Day merchandise did a framed photo of him appear, and he looks completely different from how he looks in the trailer.
- Cats Hate Water: As per usual, Garfield hates baths. To the point where in the first trailer, Jon gears himself up in hockey gear in order to give him one.
- Celebrity Paradox: An extreme case with a fictional character; in the first trailer, one of the things Garfield slams into after Vic kicks him out of the train is a parade balloon of himself.
- Conjoined Eyes: As seen in the trailers, the character designs for the film give an impression of the characters having one eye with two pupils.
- Continuity Cameo: Binky the Clown appears in the trailer as a doll in the Italian restaurant, and as a decal on a camper van.
- Fat Bastard: Jinx is certainly very chubby for a Persian cat, and as a criminal mastermind, she certainly holds no good will towards anyone.
- Fluffy Dry Cat: The first trailer shows Garfield all fluffed up after getting bathed.
- From Stray to Pet: In the trailer, Garfield was shown to be a stray kitten on the streets before Jon adopted him.
- Hates Their Parent: In the trailers, when Garfield introduces Odie to his father, Vic, there is audible and visible disdain in the tone of his voice and body language. The second trailer implies that this is due to Vic never returning to Garfieldnote despite his promise to "be right back", and later on in it, Garfield gives a disdained "YOUUUUUU" after he removes the cloak covering Vic and recognizes him.
- Hating on Monday: Naturally. The famous phrase appears on Garfield's coffee mug (see the page image), and for Irony, the first two trailers dropped on Mondays, with the first coming out on a Monday the 13th (November 13, 2023).
- Jaw Drop: A variant in the first trailer. After Garfield is subjected to bath time by Jon, gaining an overly fluffy appearance as a result, Odie can only react slack-jawed as the tennis ball he's holding onto drops on the ground akin to this trope.
- Jerkass: This movie reveals that while Garfield may be a jerk, compared to his father he's downright pleasant. One of the Establishing Character Moments in the first trailer is kicking his own son out of a moving train and proceeding to joke with Odie about it.
- Like Father, Like Son: A scene on the first trailer shows Garfield and Vic showing similar mannerisms while at Jon's home.
- A Minor Kidroduction: The first trailer first shows Garfield as a kitten.
- Mythology Gag:
- When the younger Garfield runs across the street to see Jon for the first time, he passes a shop called "Lorenzo's Music Store", named after Lorenzo Music, who famously voiced Garfield in the TV specials and Garfield and Friends.
- Vic resembles a modernized version of Garfield's original design from the beginning of the comic strips.
- The scene of Jon bathing Garfield is reminiscent of the September 5, 1978 strip, where Jon is also seen wearing a helmet and gloves while giving him a bath.
- Likewise the follow-up comic has Jon dry up Garfield, which results in Garfield being all fluffed up, much like in the movie.
- In the second trailer, Jon can be seen with a bowl of Binky O's cereal, with Binky the Clown prominently displayed on the box art.
- In the second trailer, immediately after Garfield is blown into a house by a strong wind, he gets thrown through a window just like in the infamous March 29, 1981 strip.
- Origins Episode: The first trailer shows how Jon and Garfield first met, with Garfield being a stray kitten and Jon immediately becoming taken by him (as well as being introduced to his incredible appetite).
- Pragmatic Adaptation: In terms of the animation — unlike most previous CGI adaptations, which generally used exactly the same designs as the comics without any regard for the fact that they weren't made with 3D in mind, the film subtly adjusts the characters' proportions and design elements, particularly the look of their Conjoined Eyes, in the interest of making them more expressive and appealing.
- Product Placement: At the end of the first trailer, a bag of Olive Garden takeout can be seen in Jon's fridge. In the second trailer, when Vic tells Garfield that he needs to be toughened up, he knows tough after "being in an Olive Garden that's run out of breadsticks".
- Race Lift: In concept art, Liz in Ambiguously Brown.
- Something Only They Would Say: What finally let Garfield figure out that the hooded figure was Vic is that he called him "Jr." Nobody else ever used that alias with him.
- Sudden Anatomy: Like the comics, characters regularly alternate between having and not having visible teeth to make them more expressive.
- Sudden Eye Color: All of the characters gain eye colors in the film whereas the comics and previous animated installments all gave (most of) them the standard black eyes.
- This Is My Human: In the trailer, Garfield proudly describes to the audience how he "adopted Jon."
- Title: The Adaptation: The Garfield Movie.
- You Didn't See That: The second trailer ends with the Fluffy Dry Cat gag, with Garfield telling Odie, "You saw nothing."
- You Don't Look Like You: Garfield's father actually isn't an original character, but was rather exclusive to merchandise before the film shot him to prominence. However, there are very big differences between the merch version and Vic from the films; the merch version has grey fur, a body type shared with his son's 1980 design, and given how a picture of him was held by Garfield is generally well-regarded by his son. Vic, by contrast, uses a faded version of Garfield's color scheme, and not only is he twice the size of his son, but he has a top-heavy build, his head is basically neckless and his arms are far burlier than Garfield's own. Garfield's introduction of him also makes it clear that, unlike the merch version, Vic is not seen in a positive light.
