The Cat in the Hat (film)
The Cat in the Hat is a 2003 American fantasy comedy film directed by Bo Welch in his directorial debut and written by Alec Berg, David Mandel and Jeff Schaffer. Based on Dr. Seuss' 1957 book of the same name, it was the second feature-length Dr. Seuss adaptation after How the Grinch Stole Christmas. The film is narrated by Victor Brandt and stars Mike Myers in the title role along with Dakota Fanning, Spencer Breslin, Alec Baldwin, Kelly Preston and Amy Hill in supporting roles.
Production on the film began in 1997 with Tim Allen originally cast in the title role, but dropped out due to scheduling conflicts with The Santa Clause 2, to which the role went to Myers. Filming took place in California for three months. While the basic plot parallels faithfully that of the book, the film filled out its 82 minutes by adding new subplots and characters significantly different from the original story, similar to How the Grinch Stole Christmas. David Newman composed the film's score.
Released theatrically on November 21, 2003 in the United States by Universal Pictures, the film grossed $133 million worldwide against its $109 million budget, and received overwhelmingly negative reviews from critics, largely for its adult-oriented humor, innuendos, lack of faithfulness to the source material, screenplay, characters, and performances, while the visual aspects, Newman's musical score and the production values were mostly praised. Following the film's poor reception, Seuss' widow, Audrey Geisel, decided not to allow any further live-action adaptations of her husband's work to be produced, resulting in a planned sequel based on the second book The Cat in the Hat Comes Back getting cancelled and for subsequent adaptations of Seuss' works to be produced in animation form, starting with Horton Hears a Who!.
Plot
Conrad and Sally Walden live in Anville with their single mother Joan, who works for neat-freak Hank Humberfloob as a real estate agent and is dating their next-door neighbor Larry Quinn. One day, Joan leaves her children at home with their babysitter Mrs. Kwan while she goes to the office, forbidding them to enter the living room which is being kept pristine for an office party she is hosting that night.After Mrs. Kwan falls asleep, Sally and Conrad meet The Cat in the Hat, an anthropomorphic and humanoid talking cat with a red-and-white striped top hat and a large red bow tie who persuades them to have fun. In the process, the Cat leaves a trail of destruction throughout the house and releases two troublemakers, named Thing 1 and Thing 2, from a crate which he locks and forbids the children to tamper with, explaining that it is a portal to his world. Despite the Cat's warning, Conrad picks the lock on the crate, which grabs on to the collar of the family dog Nevins, who runs off. The trio drive the Cat's super-powered car to search for Nevins and get the lock back.
Meanwhile, Larry is revealed to be an unemployed slob in debt, pretending to be a successful businessman in order to marry Joan for her money, as well as getting rid of Conrad by sending him to military school. Larry sees Nevins running across the street and kidnaps him, but the Cat tricks Larry into giving the dog back. Larry goes to Joan to tell her about the Cat, but Conrad uses the Things' characteristics to always do the opposite of what they are told to have them stall Larry and Joan by posing as police officers. Larry goes back to the house, telling Joan to meet him there.
When the kids and the Cat return to the house with the lock, Larry cuts them off and orders them inside the house, where he sneezes uncontrollably due to his allergy to the Cat, who takes the advantage and scares him away, only for them to find out that the house has been transformed into "The Mother of All Messes", with Larry falling into a gooey abyss. They ride on Mrs. Kwan and navigate through the surreal house to find the crate and lock it, whereupon the house returns to its normal proportions but then immediately collapses. In a heated argument, the kids discover that the Cat planned the whole day. Fed up with his messy actions, they order the Cat to leave.
Conrad and Sally prepare to face the consequences when Joan comes home, but the Cat returns with a cleaning invention and fixes the house; Conrad and Sally reconcile with the Cat and thank him for everything, before he departs just as Joan arrives. Larry, covered in goo, returns and thinks he has busted the kids, but when Joan sees the clean house, she doesn't believe and dumps him. After her party becomes a success, Joan spends quality time with her kids by jumping on the living room couch together while the Cat alongside Things 1 and 2 walks off into the sunset.
Cast
- Mike Myers as The Cat in the Hat, a 6 ft. tall, anthropomorphic, humanoid wisecracking cat with a Brooklyn accent who wears an oversized red bow tie and a magical red-and-white striped top hat that reveals many humorous gadgets.
- Spencer Breslin as Conrad Walden, Joan's destructive and misbehaved borderline troublemaker of a son, and the older brother of Sally.
- Dakota Fanning as Sally Walden, Joan's dull, somewhat bossy, well-behaved and rule-obeying sycophant daughter, and the younger sister of Conrad.
- Kelly Preston as Joan Walden, Conrad and Sally's single-mother, a workaholic real-estate agent.
- Alec Baldwin as Larry Quinn, the main antagonist; the Waldens' pompous, lazy and unemployed next-door neighbor who is allergic to cats, steals food from the Waldens and gets away with it, and is determined to both marry Joan to mooch off of her wealth and send Conrad to military school in order to get rid of him.
- Amy Hill as Mrs. Kwan, an overweight and elderly Taiwanese woman who was hired to watch the kids, though she sleeps through her job, which serves as a running gag. She usually sits down on the couch to watch brawling in Taiwanese parliament.
- Sean Hayes as Hank Humberfloob, Joan's zero-tolerance boss and germophobe, who may seem friendly at first glance, but is quick to fire employees for even the smallest infractions, often in an over-announciated, extremely loud tone of voice.
- *Hayes is also the voice of the somewhat cynical, pessimistic family fish.
- Danielle Chuchran and Taylor Rice as Thing 1, and Brittany Oaks and Talia-Lynn Prairie as Thing 2; two gibbering trouble-making creatures that the Cat brings in with him. Dan Castellaneta provided the voices for the Things.
- Steven Anthony Lawrence as Dumb Schweitzer, an intellectually and socially inferior pre-teen boy with a Bronx accent. He whacks the Cat right in the crotch with a wooden baseball bat.
- Paris Hilton as a female club-goer.
- Bugsy as Nevins, the Waldens' pet dog. Frank Welker provided his voice. Welker had previously provided the voice of Max the dog, from How the Grinch Stole Christmas.
- Candace Dean Brown as a secretary who works for Humberfloob Real Estate.
- Daran Norris as the Astounding Products Announcer
- Clint Howard as Kate the Caterer
- Paige Hurd as Denise, who does not speak to Sally anymore, not long after she talked back to her. She never invited Sally to her birthday party either since Sally earlier stated that she told Denise not to speak to her anymore.
- Roger Morrissey as Mr. Vompatatat
- Victor Brandt as the Narrator, who tells the story; he is revealed to be the Cat using a voice-changer at the end.
Production
Development
acquired the film rights to the original Dr. Seuss book in 1997. However, production did not originally start until after the 2000 Christmas/comedy film How the Grinch Stole Christmas, based on another Dr. Seuss book of the same name, became a commercial success. Brian Grazer, the producer of The Grinch, stated: "Because we grew up with these books, and because they have such universal themes and the illustrations ignite such fantasy in your mind as a child—the aggregation of all those feelings—it leaves an indelible, positive memory. And so when I realized I had a chance to convert first The Grinch and then, The Cat in the Hat, into movies, I was willing to do anything to bring them to the screen." Grazer then contacted Bo Welch over the phone with the offer to direct the film, and he accepted. When production began, songs written by Randy Newman were dropped because they were deemed inferior; Newman's cousin, David, instead composed the score for the film. Although Welch and a publicist for Myers denied it, several people said Myers had considerable input into the film's direction by telling some of the cast how to perform their scenes.Casting
was originally going to play the role of the Cat. The script was originally based on a story conceived by Allen, who admitted that as a child he was afraid of Seuss' "mischievous feline" babysitter. Allen stated, "My dream is to give it the edge that scared me." However, producers did not commission a screenplay until late February 2001, when Alec Berg, David Mandel and Jeff Schaffer were hired to write the script, so the film would not be ready to shoot before the deadline. Allen was also committed to shooting Disney's The Santa Clause 2, which was also delayed because Allen wanted a script rewrite. Due to a scheduling conflict with that film, he dropped out of the role. As a result, in March 2002 the role of the Cat was given to Mike Myers, despite him having had an argument with Grazer about starring in a cancelled film based on his Saturday Night Live sketch Dieter. Myers stated in an interview that he was a long-time fan of the original Dr. Seuss book, and that it was the first book he ever read.Makeup and visual effects
for the Cat character was designed by Steve Johnson. The Cat costume was made of angora and human hair and was fitted with a cooling system. To keep Myers cool during the outdoor shoots, a portable air conditioner was available that connected a hose to the suit between shots, while the tail and ears were battery-operated. Danielle Chuchran and Brittany Oaks, who portrayed Thing 1 and Thing 2, respectively, wore a prosthetic face mask and wig designed by Johnson as well. The Fish was considered somewhat of a unique character for Rhythm & Hues Studios, in that the character had no shoulders, hips or legs, so all of the physical performance had to emit from the eyes, head and fin motion. Sean Hayes, who provided the voice for the Fish, found the role significantly different from his usual on-camera jobs; he did not know how the final animation would look, resulting in all of his voice work taking place alone in a sound booth.Filming
Prior to filming, giant props for the film were stolen from the set; the local police found the props vandalized with graffiti in a shopping mall car park in Pomona, California. Despite this, no arrests had been made and filming was to start the next week. Principal photography took place mostly in California from October 2002 to January 2003. The neighborhood and the town center was filmed in a rural valley near Simi Valley, where 24 houses were constructed. The downtown area outdoor shots were filmed along a Pomona street where a number of antique and gift shops are located. The community decided not to redecorate after filming ended, so the surreal paint scheme and some of the signage could still be seen today as it appears in the film. Because of so much smog in the area, the sky had to be digitally replaced with the cartoon-like sky and colors of the background had to be digitally fixed.According to co-star Amy Hill, Myers was very difficult to work with on set, refusing to talk to anyone on the production, to which he completely isolated himself from the cast and crew during breaks in the filming. She also noted that the film ended up having long and pointless retakes of scenes because Myers overruled Welch on whether they were good enough or not.
Music
The soundtrack was released on November 18, 2003. Originally, Marc Shaiman was going to compose the score for the film, but due to David Newman already being chosen for the film score, Shaiman instead wrote the film's songs with Scott Wittman. The soundtrack also features a song by Smash Mouth, which makes it the third Mike Myers-starring film in a row to feature a song by Smash Mouth after Shrek and Austin Powers in Goldmember. The trailer for the film uses a version of "Hey! Pachuco!" by the Royal Crown Revue. The soundtrack also includes a couple of songs performed by Mike Myers. Newman's score won a BMI Film Music Award.Track listing
Release
Home media
The Cat in the Hat was released on VHS and DVD on March 16, 2004. The DVD features 13 deleted scenes, 36 outtakes, 13 featurettes, a "Dance with the Cat" tutorial to teach children how to do a Cat in the Hat dance, and an audio commentary with director Bo Welch and actor Alec Baldwin. On February 7, 2012, the film was released on Blu-ray.Reception
Box office
The Cat in the Hat opened theatrically on November 21, 2003 and earned $38,329,160 in its opening weekend, ranking first in the North American box office ahead of Elf and . The film ended its theatrical run on March 18, 2004, having grossed $101,149,285 domestically and $32,811,256 overseas for a worldwide total of $133,960,541. The film was a box office bomb.Critical response
The Cat in the Hat was universally panned by critics and audiences alike. Review aggregation website Rotten Tomatoes gives the film a 9% approval rating based on 160 reviews, with an average rating of 3.17/10. The website's consensus reads: "Filled with double entendres and potty humor, this Cat falls flat." On Metacritic, the film has a score of 19 out of 100 based on 37 reviews, indicating "overwhelming dislike". Audiences polled by CinemaScore gave the film an average grade of "B-" on an A+ to F scale.Peter Travers of Rolling Stone gave the film one star, stating: "Cat, another overblown Hollywood raid on Dr. Seuss, has a draw on Mike Myers, who inexplicably plays the Cat by mimicking Bert Lahr in The Wizard of Oz." Roger Ebert of The Chicago Sun-Times gave the film two out of four stars. Although he praised the production design, he considered the film to be "all effects and stunts and CGI and prosthetics, with no room for lightness and joy". Ebert and co-host Richard Roeper gave the film "Two Thumbs Down" on their weekly movie review program. Roeper said of Myers' performance that "maybe a part of him was realizing as the movie was being made that a live-action version of The Cat in the Hat just wasn't a great idea." Ebert compared the film unfavorably to How the Grinch Stole Christmas: "If there is one thing I've learned from these two movies, it's that we don't want to see Jim Carrey as a Grinch, and we don't want to see Mike Myers as a cat. These are talented comedians, let's see them do their stuff, don't bury them under a ton of technology."
Leonard Maltin gave the film one-and-a-half stars out of four in his Movie Guide: "Brightly colored adaptation of the beloved rhyming book for young children is a betrayal of everything Dr. Seuss ever stood for, injecting potty humor and adult jokes into a mixture of heavy-handed slapstick and silliness." Maltin also said that the film's official title which included Dr. Seuss' The Cat in the Hat was "an official insult".
Conversely, Variety praised the film as "attractively designed, energetically performed and, above all, blessedly concise."
Alec Baldwin was disappointed with the film and addressed complaints the film received because of its dissimilarity to the source material. He expressed a belief that a film is "an idea about something" and that because Dr. Seuss' work is so unique, making a feature-length film out of one of his stories would entail taking liberties and making broad interpretations.