Warner Bros. Takes Its Shot, Yet Again, At Theatrical Animation Domination
Or, especially amid lower expectations and a viable post-theatrical safety net, can ‘Cat in the Hat’ succeed where ‘LEGO Movie,' ‘Happy Feet’ and ‘Space Jam’ did not?
“They are making another Cat in the Hat? Eww! It should have stayed as a book!” — Ethan Mendelson, age 14, at approximately 10:35 a.m. upon seeing the above trailer image, as I finalized this very article you are now reading.
Well, I for one approve of this vibrantly animated, seemingly kid-friendly remake of Michael Haneke’s Funny Games. As released this morning, the first teaser for The Cat in the Hat introduces our unhinged agent of chaos as he wantonly disregards norms and regulations before finding his latest innocent family on which to unleash his specific brand of turmoil and terror. I always say it is better to rip off than remake (The Fast and the Furious > the Point Break remake), and this looks a lot more engaging than last year’s half-assed The Strangers Chapter 1. “Why, furry monster, why?!” “Because you were home and thus you must die.” This isn’t to say that I’m feverishly anticipating this animated revamp of Dr. Seuss’ The Cat in the Hat. However, the trailer, showcasing a particular anarchic sensibility and an art style reminiscent of a worn and torn picture book, at least earns some artistic benefit of the doubt.
It’s worth remembering that the live-action monstrosity, featuring Mike Myers in an apparent attempt to mimic the blow-out success of the Jim Carrey-starring The Grinch four years prior, earned just $133 million worldwide on a $109 million budget. It was followed the next weekend by the Eddie Murphy-starring The Haunted Mansion, which opened mere months after Pirates of the Caribbean: Curse of the Black Pearl, earning just $182 million globally on a $90 million budget. That we already got one “We already said no, dammit!” retry with Haunted Mansion ($117 million in 2023) with this newfangled Cat in the Hat set for February 27, 2026, is another example of how the industry has become so IP-obsessed that even outright commercial failure isn’t enough to convince Hollywood that not all IP is viable IP. So, yeah, kicking off your studio-wide attempt at an animated comeback with an already tried and failed brand is certainly a choice.
This isn’t the first time Warner Bros. has released a high-profile animated film that was unofficially seen as the start of a new era of commercially successful theatrical toons. This isn’t even the first time I’ve written about it, as I went in-depth (ish) on the eve of The LEGO Movie’s debut in early 2014. That film performed well, earning $259 million in North America (the biggest such earner for a non-Disney/DreamWorks non-sequel cartoon until Illumination’s The Secret Life of Pets in 2016) and $411 million worldwide on a $60 million budget, while garnering such rave reviews and buzz that its omission from the “Best Animated Feature” category at the 2015 Academy Awards caused a minor controversy. However, aside from The LEGO Batman Movie ($175 million/$312 million in 2017), a new era of WB animation dominance was not born. And even The LEGO Movie 2 ($191 million) couldn’t make lightning strike twice.
That was often the case for WB. They had major animated biggies, but those rare upper-tier successes (Space Jam in 1996, the Oscar-winning Happy Feet in 2006, The LEGO Movie in 2014) didn’t translate into brand value comparable to (at various moments in time) Disney, Pixar, DreamWorks, Blue Sky, Illumination, and Sony Animation. In isolation, that tracks. Just because audiences flocked to The LEGO Movie (a smart example of hitting hard and scoring big by being different, as opposed to the Disney-mimicking Quest for Camelot) doesn’t mean they’ll turn out in the same numbers for Storks ($181 million on a $70 million budget in 2016) or Small Foot ($214 million/$80 million in 2018). Similarly, just because people went to see Michael Jordan team up with Bugs Bunny to dunk on aliens doesn’t mean (the superior) Looney Tunes: Back in Action was box office dynamite. Sometimes, Jim Carrey’s Grinch > Mike Myers’ Cat in the Hat.