You’ve heard the debate. Is Die Hard a Christmas movie? Everyone from the director to its cast has weighed in. But are you ready for your NEXT holiday themed movie argument? Because I’m thinking that Chris Pratt’s upcoming 2024 movie The Garfield Movie might be a Thanksgiving film. And when I presented him with the evidence, it kind of blew his mind. Here, watch the clip of Pratt hearing my bizarro Thanksgiving theory for The Garfield Movie, and then we can discuss it on the other side.
OK, as you have heard (and this is not a spoiler), there’s a moment in the upcoming The Garfield Movie where the lasagna-loving feline is ping-ponging off of several inanimate objects like a tennis ball that has been bounced so that Odie will chase it. Garfield hits a tree. He hits a bridge. And he bounces off of a large parade float… that is shaped like Garfield. This is very Meta. It means that in the world of this movie, Garfield – as voiced by Guardians of the Galaxy star Chris Pratt – is famous enough to have a giant balloon of himself created. It also implies that the balloon is part of a parade. Possibly a Thanksgiving Day parade.
When pitched on the theory, Pratt ran with it, and acknowledged:
I mean, it’s a parade float, right? It’s a Thursday. You’re not making anything up. This is CinemaBlend. You don’t mess around. You watch it with a real eye. I think you’re onto something.
Stranger things have happened. And also, Die Hard takes place on Christmas Eve, yet some people still argue that the thriller isn’t a Christmas movie. So some people are just wrong. The reason why I like to push the narrative that The Garfield Movie is a Thanksgiving movie, however, is because we don’t have an overabundance of good Thanksgiving movies that families can enjoy, year after year. Halloween is covered, as is Christmas (even without Die Hard). Thanksgiving could use a boost… from a movie that comes out on Memorial Day.
With that in mind, Chris Pratt did have one note while promoting his new The Garfield Movie. He told CinemaBlend:
Don't confuse people! Say, ‘This Memorial Day, we have a lot to be thankful for.’
He’s right. Families finally have a good reason to return to theaters. It’s my hope that, with school starting to wrap, kids and parents check out IF, grab tickets to The Garfield Movie, and then plan to see Despicable Me 4 when it opens in July. Until then, we’ll have a review of The Garfield Movie up on the site later this week. The movie opens everywhere on May 24.
