Bill Hader's Cat in the Hat Gets Pepper-Sprayed and Uses a Flip Phone in First Trailer for the Dr. Seuss Movie
The first teaser trailer for the film was released on Tuesday, July 1
The Cat in the Hat voice cast also includes Quinta Brunson, Bowen Yang and America FerreraThe Cat in the Hat is back!
Bill Hader stars as the trouble-making feline in the latest animated iteration, The Cat in the Hat. On Tuesday, July 1, Warner Bros. gave the first glimpse at the latest take on the character — originated in Dr. Seuss' iconic 1957 children's book of the same name — in the first teaser trailer.
'There's a movie I've been working on for a long time. Like, really long,' Hader, 47, teased in a video shared ahead of the trailer. (The film was first announced back in 2018, according to Variety.)
In the film, the titular cat 'has been reimagined in a way that's hilarious and unlike anything you've seen before,' Hader said in the video.
The comedian also teased that the location of the new movie will be an 'expansive new universe,' which separates it from the 2003 Mike Myers live-action adaptation set in the fictional town of Anville.
In the same video, Hader also announced the star-studded voice cast, which includes Quinta Brunson, Bowen Yang, America Ferrera, Xochitl Gomez, Tituss Burgess, Matt Berry, Tiago Martinez, Paula Pell and Giancarlo Esposito.
'I can't wait for you to see these unique worlds with different styles of animation, which are so beautiful,' Hader said. 'I love how they frame and shape each world you travel through.'
Further teasing The Cat in the Hat first look, the Saturday Night Live alum joked, 'I had to bribe some officially-looking officials to get this out, and now I'm broke — but it's worth it. You're gonna love it.'
A synopsis teases, "Doing what he does best, the Cat spreads joy to kids in his hilarious, signature and singularly irreverent way, transporting them and audiences on a fantastical journey through a world they've never seen before."
"Our hero takes on his toughest assignment yet for the I.I.I.I. (Institute for the Institution of Imagination and Inspiration, LLC): to cheer Gabby and Sebastian, a pair of siblings struggling with their move to a new town. Known for taking things too far, this could be this agent of chaos's last chance to prove himself ... or lose his magical hat!"
An in-progress version of a trailer for the adaptation debuted at CinemaCon 2025 earlier this year, with the head of Warner Bros. Animation Bill Damaschke describing it as the "doorway into our own Seussiverse,' according to Entertainment Weekly.
is now available in the Apple App Store! Download it now for the most binge-worthy celeb content, exclusive video clips, astrology updates and more!
'We all know the cat cheers up and brings joy to kids on rainy days. In our film, he will get his toughest assignment yet and have to up his game to keep that hat,' Damaschke teased at the convention, per EW. 'It expands the story way beyond the book."
Before Hader — who also memorably played a live-action version of the Cat in a 2014 SNL sketch — it was Myers who brought the Dr. Seuss character to life on the big screen. The Canadian actor and SNL alum played the cat in the 2003 film, which starred Spencer Breslin and Dakota Fanning as a sibling duo who — along with Myers' character — butt heads with a villainous Alec Baldwin.
More recently, PBS Kids seriesThe Cat in the Hat Knows a Lot About That! starred yet another SNL alum, Martin Short, as the titular feline. The educational children's show ran from 2010 to 2018, per IMDb.
The Cat in the Hat is in theaters Feb. 27, 2026.
Read the original article on People
Hashtags
Try Our AI Features
Explore what Daily8 AI can do for you:
Comments
No comments yet...
Related Articles
Miami Herald
17 minutes ago
- Miami Herald
Rob McElhenney is changing his name. His kids, wife share how they feel about it
As actor Rob McElhenney continues to take steps to change his surname, his wife and kids are revealing how they feel about the move. During a May interview with Variety, McElhenney revealed that he was considering changing his last name from McElhenney to Mac, and WPVI reported he recently took legal steps to do so. Mac has some significance, at least to McElhenney and his wife, Kaitlin Olson. It's the name of his 'It's Always Sunny in Philadelphia' character, a show that will begin its 17th season in July. And the show the lead to their 17-year marriage. A post shared by Rob McElhenney (@robmcelhenney)
Yahoo
an hour ago
- Yahoo
‘The Cat in the Hat' Trailer: Bill Hader Gets Animated for Dr. Seuss Adaptation
Bill Hader is swapping the dark comedy of 'Barry' for pure animated fun — while staying under the Warner Bros. Discovery hat. Hader's first project since wrapping his acclaimed HBO series in 2023 is the animated adaptation of Dr. Seuss' 'The Cat in the Hat.' Hader stars as the titular character who 'takes on his toughest assignment yet for the I.I.I.I. (Institute for the Institution of Imagination and Inspiration, LLC): to cheer Gabby and Sebastian, a pair of siblings struggling with their move to a new town,' as the synopsis reads. 'Known for taking things too far, this could be this agent of chaos' last chance to prove himself…or lose his magical hat!' More from IndieWire SCAD Takes Cannes: IndieWire's Future of Filmmaking 'The Eva Victor Grad Program': Inside the Year-and-a-Half the Director Spent Preparing to Make 'Sorry, Baby' Xochitl Gomez, Matt Berry, Quinta Brunson, Paula Pell, Tiago Martinez, Giancarlo Esposito, America Ferrera, Bowen Yang, and Tituss Burgess co-star in the animated film. Alessandro Carloni and Erica Rivinoja co-write and co-direct 'The Cat in the Hat.' Earlier this year, Carloni said during a Work in Progression session at Annecy, via Deadline, that WBD's 2023 shelving of 'Coyote vs. Acme' was sadly 'representative of how painful and atrocious the industry can be,' especially for animated films. ('Coyote vs. Acme' was later sold to Ketchup Entertainment in 2025 and will receive a theatrical release next year.) As for how their version of 'The Cat in the Hat' will differ from other iterations, Carloni said they approached the source material with a fresh perspective. 'We looked back at the book and wondered why the children become more confident by the end of the books,' Carloni said. 'Deep down, is [the cat] the greatest child psychologist of all time? The greatest emotional support animal?' In addition to 'The Cat in the Hat,' actor Hader has another project in the works at Warner Bros. Hader is co-writing a series about the Jonestown cult massacre with 'Damages' showrunner Daniel Zelman. Hader will serve as co-showrunner with Zelman and also executive produce, with Hader set to direct should the project move forward at HBO. A source told IndieWire that Hader could potentially star in the series as Jim Jones as well. 'Saturday Night Live' alum Hader previously won two Emmys for Best Actor in a Comedy for 'Barry.' The series itself garnered 16 total Emmy nominations for writer/director/creator Hader across its four seasons. Warner Bros. Pictures will release 'The Cat in the Hat' in theaters February 27, 2026. Check out the trailer below. Best of IndieWire Guillermo del Toro's Favorite Movies: 56 Films the Director Wants You to See 'Song of the South': 14 Things to Know About Disney's Most Controversial Movie Nicolas Winding Refn's Favorite Films: 37 Movies the Director Wants You to See
Yahoo
an hour ago
- Yahoo
‘The Eva Victor Grad Program': Inside the Year-and-a-Half the Director Spent Preparing to Make ‘Sorry, Baby'
Comedian and actor Eva Victor had previously been hired to write screenplays, but sitting down to write 'Sorry, Baby' during COVID lockdown was different. 'It was a little bit rebellious, it was the script that no one was asking me to write,' said Victor while a guest on this week's episode of the Filmmaker Toolkit podcast. 'This is the movie I want to write if I die tomorrow. I just kind of needed to get this out [of me], and it was becoming more painful to not write it, than to write it.' It is very personal film, one that Victor (who uses she/they pronouns) long saw themselves also starring in, as the protagonist Agnes. But Victor feared that simultaneously starring in and directing their first feature film would compromise both roles. Conversely, initially entertaining the idea of bringing on another director brought clarity to the dilemma. More from IndieWire SCAD Takes Cannes: IndieWire's Future of Filmmaking 'The Cat in the Hat' Trailer: Bill Hader Gets Animated for Dr. Seuss Adaptation 'I realized that I desperately wanted to direct it. I just felt scared of not knowing [how], I never went to film school. My only time making stuff on my own had been videos with my iPhone,' Victor said. Victor's iPhone comedies built an online following, including director Barry Jenkins, whose Pastel Productions would produce 'Sorry, Baby.' One thing Jenkins saw in those internet videos — although Victor didn't at the time see it themselves — was that they were already demonstrating a strong directorial sensibility. Jenkins and his partners at Pastel, including Adele Romanski and Mark Ceryak, would become advisors to what they called 'The Eva Victor Grad Program,' which started with a question posed to Victor: What do you need to prepare to direct? 'I have an issue,' explained Victor. 'If someone asks me a question, I come back with like pages and pages of an answer.' The result is what universities might call a 'self-guided' course of study, which Victor walked us through while a guest on the Filmmaker Toolkit podcast. No course of study will give a director 'a vision' for a film, which is an essential ingredient. 'It was about slowing down and being like, 'Look, I know how I want this to look and feel. I need to surround myself with like geniuses to help me execute this and to help me understand why an image feels so important to me on a technical level, so that I understand what story we're telling and the vocabulary of the film,' said Victor. It would take time for Victor to learn the tools and process. And while unemployment is stressful, it supplied Victor a year-and-half of immersing themselves in the steps to get to the point they felt confident they could direct 'Sorry, Baby.' 'I would go look up the curriculum of a bunch of film schools,' said Victor. 'I would watch the films and I would read the books, [which] were these technical books.' There are so many facets to filmmaking, and filmmaking books can lead to falling down overly comprehensive rabbit holes. It's here, in retrospect, the self-guided nature of Victor's deep dive wasn't always the most productive use of time, as the scope of the discussion was beyond what they felt they needed to know. What became important from this process was understanding what tangible steps and exercises Victor would need to do next. Explained Victor, 'I read the books that I think make sense to read, and now obviously I need to do something different because this is very heady and it's a not impractical, but non-practical, it's not the action of doing something.' '[Reading filmmaking books] became, 'OK, now I know what a shot list is, how do you make a shot list? How do films that I love shot list?' So I analyzed films,' said Victor. 'I went through all of 'Certain Women' and took a screenshot of every setup, and [said], 'OK, so let me guess at [director] Kelly Reichardt's shot list.'' Victor realized there were limitations to reconstructing Reichardt's actual shot list, as aspects of the coverage were likely left on the editing room floor, but it became important to get inside the thought process behind the choices. 'It's an attempt at understanding the scope and the reasons why the camera is where it is, and how you can edit things together,' said Victor. Victor's transition from scene analysis to storyboarding was seamless, as analyzing films like 'Certain Women' 'quickly becomes, 'OK, that's how she did it,' explained Victor. 'But how am I going to do it?' 'Why does this coverage make sense for her story and what kind of coverage makes sense for my stories?' And that became storyboarding.' Victor spent five months storyboarding. It would prove to be one of her most valuable schooling steps. '[I] finally put to paper the images that had been lasting in my mind, so that I could show people the wide [shot] of the house at the beginning, and even just to show myself,' said Victor. 'It was almost like editing the film once, to see if I liked the edit.' One of the big visual challenges Victor would start working through was that 70 of the 84 scenes in 'Sorry, Baby' take place in a small New England cottage. Practical locations with tight interior spaces are often where low-budget independent films go to die, and Victor would need the cottage to visually express distinct phases of Agnes (Victor) and best friend Lydie's (Naomi Ackie) lives. Victor would have to prove to herself, but also make the case to her savvy producers, that she could pull off what could be a significant, self-imposed limitation. 'The cottage has to do a lot, and it has to go through a transformation on its own,' said Victor. 'I wanted the cottage to be able to exist on the spectrum of a warm cozy nest when Lydie is around, and then sort of this house of horrors when Agnes feels lonely.' 'Sorry, Baby' is a non-linear film, moving between the time Lydie and Agnes are grad student living together in the cottage, and then later when Agnes stays on to teach at their university. While Agnes is isolated and feeling stuck in the cottage, Lydie is off living her life in New York City and growing (discovering she's gay, falling in love, and having a baby). 'It's really about showing someone how time passes in the same places,' said Victor. 'A cottage in the woods is like a horror movie thing, and it's also a rom-com thing, so it's helpful to have our associations with images to then use them to tell Agnes' subjective experience of how this house transforms in different moments.' The five months of storyboarding was beneficial, but it triggered a new fear in Victor: How does set work as a director? 'I took five months to make storyboards, I don't have five months to make [the film], so I asked my friend Jane Schoenbrun to go to their set and shadow,' said Victor. The most valuable part of shadowing Schoenbrun, was watching them prep 'I Saw the TV Glow.' Victor acknowledged they are a very different filmmakers, but in a way that was for the best — seeing how Schoenbrun's distinct and clear vision was translated to the 'TV Glow' department heads was helpful. Prior to that, Victor did not understand what happened during pre-production, and was comforted that there were so many meetings where every aspect of the film was discussed in detail. By the end of the 'I Saw the TV Glow' shoot, Victor called the Pastel team with news: they were ready to direct 'Sorry, Baby.' An A24 release, 'Sorry, Baby' is now in limited theaters, with a nationwide release to follow on Friday, July 18. To hear Eva Victor's full interview, subscribe to the Filmmaker Toolkit podcast on Apple, Spotify, or your favorite podcast platform Best of IndieWire The Best Lesbian Movies Ever Made, from 'D.E.B.S.' and 'Carol' to 'Bound' and 'Pariah' The Best Thrillers Streaming on Netflix in June, from 'Vertigo' and 'Rear Window' to 'Emily the Criminal' All 12 Wes Anderson Movies, Ranked, from 'Bottle Rocket' to 'The Phoenician Scheme'
