You may remember that they already made a movie version of The Cat in the Hat. Directed by Bo Welch, the movie came out in 2003 and starred Mike Myers, Alec Baldwin, Kelly Preston and Dakota Fanning. But that's probably not what you remember, though; you probably remember the epic trashing that the title got from critics or how it failed to make back its $100 million-plus budget at the box office. Well, let's hope that the second time is the charm because we're getting another film version of that same story.
Deadline reports that Illumination Entertainment and Universal Pictures, the same companies that brought you The Lorax, is now planning on bringing The Cat in the Hat back to the big screen. Much like those two previous films, the new project is also being planned as a 3D movie made with CGI animation. Rob Lieber has already been hired to pen the script and Audrey Geisel, former wife of Theodore "Dr. Seuss" Geisel, will serve as executive producer. The announcement comes following two very successful weeks at the box office for The Lorax, as that film has already made over $130 million domestically.
Here's the good news: unlike The Lorax, there's no real message in The Cat in the Hat that the filmmakers can totally screw up. The bad news is that The Cat in the Hat is still a very short story and is going to require an insane amount of padding to become feature length. And if they couldn't do it the last time, why would it work here? Last time I checked the medium wasn't the problem.
