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‘Garfield’: Chris Pratt To Voice Title Character In Alcon Entertainment’s Animated Film

Brian

By Brian
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Fizzzzle

Fizzzzle

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I don't think I ever saw the Garfield cartoon (was there one? I don't remember anymore) so I don't have an emotional attachment to how his voice is supposed to sound. That being said, if you're going Chris Pratt, you might as well go Seth Rogen, who is basically Chris Pratt on steroids as far as voice acting is concerned. I don't know what kind of style you'd go with for Garfield. I'd always imagined him as like a deadpan voice, but I also understand that might not make it a movie that kids want to go see, which is ultimately what the studios want.

 

That being said, I don't really give a fuck about Garfield and will probably never see this movie, so whatever. Give Chris Pratt another payday.

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ort

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4 hours ago, Fizzzzle said:

I don't think I ever saw the Garfield cartoon (was there one?

 

Yes, it was good for an 80s cartoon.

 

What's funny is that the voice actor for Garfield was the same voice actor for Peter Venkman on the Real Ghostbusters (Lorenzo music) and later in the live action (sorta) Garfield movies, Garfield was voiced by Bill Murray.

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Fizzzzle

Fizzzzle

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You know what I don't get - why do studios keep spending tons of money to get top-bill voice talent for animated films? They don't have to. Think to yourself - who is the intended audience for this movie? Is it kids? Because I don't think kids give half a shit if Chris Pratt or Samuel L Jackson are voicing the characters. Is it their older millennial parents looking for a nostalgia hit? Because I sincerely doubt they do either.

 

So why does some producer think "you know what would REALLY push this film over the edge? Chris Pratt and Samuel L Jackson." What audience do they think they're going to reach who weren't going to watch this movie anyway?

 

"Yes, this just increased or voice acting budget by millions of dollars, but think of all the hundreds of people in the world who will now watch this movie BECAUSE Chris Pratt voices Garfield!"

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Keyser_Soze

Keyser_Soze

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18 minutes ago, Fizzzzle said:

So why does some producer think "you know what would REALLY push this film over the edge? Chris Pratt and Samuel L Jackson." What audience do they think they're going to reach who weren't going to watch this movie anyway?

 

Chris Pratt was in the Lego movie which was very successful so perhaps producers equate that success with Chris Pratt and not just the Legos.

 

As for Samuel L Jackson I wouldn't necessarily see an animated movie because of him but in the ones he's in he generally does a good job and more likable than Pratt.

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Fizzzzle

Fizzzzle

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33 minutes ago, Keyser_Soze said:

 

Chris Pratt was in the Lego movie which was very successful so perhaps producers equate that success with Chris Pratt and not just the Legos.

 

As for Samuel L Jackson I wouldn't necessarily see an animated movie because of him but in the ones he's in he generally does a good job and more likable than Pratt.

It's just like the tale as old as time of studio execs learning the exact wrong reasons for why movies succeed/fail.

 

Like how when they renamed "John Carter of Mars" to "John Carter." Why did they do that? Because Disney had just recently released a movie called "Mars Needs Moms" that bombed, and even though those movies had nothing to do with each other at all, the execs at Disney thought "CLEARLY people just don't like movies with Mars in the title."

 

... THAT's the lesson you learned? Not that the movie sucked, not that it was unclear who the audience was, not that no one seemed to have a clear vision on what the film even was, no... people didn't watch it because it had "Mars" in the title.

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Keyser_Soze

Keyser_Soze

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1 hour ago, Fizzzzle said:

It's just like the tale as old as time of studio execs learning the exact wrong reasons for why movies succeed/fail.

 

I wouldn't put it solely on the shoulders of executives, it just seems to be a normal thing in American animated movies. Tim Allen and Tom Hanks in Toy Story for instance, iconic movie with popular actors acting the part. The bigger issue is if the person can actually ACT the part. In the case of Chris Pratt, it just sounds like Chris Pratt. When I come to a Mario movie or Garfield movie I want to hear those characters not Chris Pratt as an orange cat. People got complacent when people said he was, "fine" in Mario. But I don't want fine, I want to hear Mario being awesome. Even Seth Rogan even went as far as to say that he won't do a voice, he will just do himself (as Donkey Kong) which works for some people but how about we get a Donkey Kong with some personality.

 

Voice actors are trained to act with just their voice and can turn out a variety of awesome performances. When you hire just a screen actor it seems they are just getting by on the sound of their voice and nothing else. Go listen to Megan Fox in MK1, totally out of place. You could have better performances and maybe even save some production costs going with a voice actor. But I guess people won't flock to the theater if Yuri Lowenthal's name is on the poster instead of Ryan Gosling. 🤷‍♀️

 

As for this movie I already touched on it a bit but this sounds just like Chris Pratt. Lorenzo Music set the standard for Garfields, and while the movie sucked Bill Murray at least sounded the part.

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Fizzzzle

Fizzzzle

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22 hours ago, Keyser_Soze said:

 

I wouldn't put it solely on the shoulders of executives, it just seems to be a normal thing in American animated movies. Tim Allen and Tom Hanks in Toy Story for instance, iconic movie with popular actors acting the part. The bigger issue is if the person can actually ACT the part. In the case of Chris Pratt, it just sounds like Chris Pratt. When I come to a Mario movie or Garfield movie I want to hear those characters not Chris Pratt as an orange cat. People got complacent when people said he was, "fine" in Mario. But I don't want fine, I want to hear Mario being awesome. Even Seth Rogan even went as far as to say that he won't do a voice, he will just do himself (as Donkey Kong) which works for some people but how about we get a Donkey Kong with some personality.

 

Voice actors are trained to act with just their voice and can turn out a variety of awesome performances. When you hire just a screen actor it seems they are just getting by on the sound of their voice and nothing else. Go listen to Megan Fox in MK1, totally out of place. You could have better performances and maybe even save some production costs going with a voice actor. But I guess people won't flock to the theater if Yuri Lowenthal's name is on the poster instead of Ryan Gosling. 🤷‍♀️

 

As for this movie I already touched on it a bit but this sounds just like Chris Pratt. Lorenzo Music set the standard for Garfields, and while the movie sucked Bill Murray at least sounded the part.

See, this is what I mean. Tom Hanks and Tim Allen were iconic in Toy Story, but were they necessary? Was shelling out the budget to get them necessary? Or would people have gone to see the movie regardless, and someone else could have done it? (I recognize that a full 3D movie was a new thing at the time, so they were just hedging their bets)

 

Pixar and Disney, for the most part, don't get giant celebrities to play their voiced characters. Who was the biggest actor in Frozen? Kristen Bell? Sure, she's famous, but not like Chris Pratt famous. She was still doing fucking network TV, both before and after Frozen. Name a single voice actor from Brave without looking it up. Brave certainly had some accomplished actors in the cast, but no big celebrities.

 

There are exceptions, like Disney pretty much designing Genie around Robin Williams or Dwayne Johnson in Moana. But no one designed Mario or Garfield around Chris Pratt. They're just shoving his voice in there because they think there's a large enough audience out there that was on the fence about seeing the movie before they went "ooooh, but Chris Pratt is in it!" which I think is absurd.

 

And before anyone says "well that's different, it's Disney" - NOT when Frozen came out. Disney was coming off the back of Tangled, but that was pretty much their first universally acclaimed animated movie in well over a decade.

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Greatoneshere

Greatoneshere

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8 hours ago, Fizzzzle said:

See, this is what I mean. Tom Hanks and Tim Allen were iconic in Toy Story, but were they necessary? Was shelling out the budget to get them necessary? Or would people have gone to see the movie regardless, and someone else could have done it? (I recognize that a full 3D movie was a new thing at the time, so they were just hedging their bets)

 

Pixar and Disney, for the most part, don't get giant celebrities to play their voiced characters. Who was the biggest actor in Frozen? Kristen Bell? Sure, she's famous, but not like Chris Pratt famous. She was still doing fucking network TV, both before and after Frozen. Name a single voice actor from Brave without looking it up. Brave certainly had some accomplished actors in the cast, but no big celebrities.

 

There are exceptions, like Disney pretty much designing Genie around Robin Williams or Dwayne Johnson in Moana. But no one designed Mario or Garfield around Chris Pratt. They're just shoving his voice in there because they think there's a large enough audience out there that was on the fence about seeing the movie before they went "ooooh, but Chris Pratt is in it!" which I think is absurd.

 

And before anyone says "well that's different, it's Disney" - NOT when Frozen came out. Disney was coming off the back of Tangled, but that was pretty much their first universally acclaimed animated movie in well over a decade.

 

Whether celebrity voice actors bring in more kids and families to the theater is hard to parse - I imagine big names on the posters and marketing do help sell the movie rather than not since average Joe often bases seeing a film on who is in it rather than the more important writers and directors involved. Stupid, but average Joe is stupid. Average Joe is frequently susceptible to marketing in commercials and advertisements. Average Joe is susceptible to getting red pilled. Average Joe goes to see random movie because it has "whoever" in it, even though many actors are in both good and bad stuff, making them the worst barometer as to why you should or shouldn't see something. Average Joe doesn't get what this board thought was obvious subtext in films like Nope and Mother. Big name celebrities in voice only roles will work on average Joe and average Joe's average children.

 

Whether that results in a tangible change in box office gross I have no idea, I can only speak to the fact that celebrity voices do pull in the casuals, which is most of the population. While I don't like it either, it's going to keep happening.

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Keyser_Soze

Keyser_Soze

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I think a celebrity voice might help if it's an obscure movie. But something like Garfield stands on it's own. You don't go see Garfield because it's so and so's voice, you go because it's gad damn Garfield the big orange cat that eats lasagna!

 

But on the flip side of obscure movies, even if a big name actor is in it "average Joe" isn't going to give it the time of day because he's never heard of it, or it's got a weird name, or whatever. Osmosis Jones was considered a box office bomb despite having the talents of Chris Rock, BRANDY!, William Shatner. Those are names that put butts in movie seats. Probably the only Farelly Brothers movie they let you watch at school.

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LazyPiranha

LazyPiranha

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The thing about celebrity voice casting is people will treat them like a celebrity.  Pratt went on tons of talk shows, Jack Black went around in an awkwardly tight Bowser costume, things like that.  People found out about this movie or were reminded about this movie because of the people involved, denying that is foolish.  No one is booking Charles Martinet on Stephen Colbert.  
 

Now, you can argue endlessly that the extra money needed to hire these people is not being recouped enough to justify the investment, that’s a different story, but they are getting bang for their buck.

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