The planned live-action/CGI-blended Tom & Jerry film from Fantastic Four director Tim Story is continuing its slow march into production, and Warner Bros. has reportedly met with Zombieland: Double Tap‘s Zoey Deutch for the lead role of “Kayla,” a young woman who recruits Tom to help her stop Jerry from ruining an important event, according to That Hashtag Show.
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Ready Player One‘s Olivia Cooke is also on Warner Bros.’ radar, which makes sense given how successful that film was for the studio.
According to the THS report, Cooke and Deutch are at the top of a shortlist that also includes Isabela Moner (Transformers: The Last Knight), Kelly Marie Tran (Star Wars: The Last Jedi), Becky G (Power Rangers), and Yara Shahidi (Grown-ish).
Earlier this year, concept art for the film emerged, with Jennifer Lawrence slotted into the role. As we have seen time and time again, inserting familiar actors into such art — sometimes people who are being pursued for the role, or sometimes just the “type” of actor the artist imagines in the role — is not uncommon. From this list, it seems that not only is Lawrence not part of the conversation, but that Warners may be going for a somewhat younger feel. While Lawrence at 28 is only three years older than Deutch and Cooke, the fact that she has been such a significant presence in audience’s minds for nearly a decade could make it harder to pitch her as, say, a recent college graduate or something like that. The other names on the list are even younger than 25.
THS notes that, as far as they have heard, Tom and Jerry will not speak in the film, as they don’t in the animated shorts that made them household names in animation. That will make the film’s lead carry more weight, a la what we saw from Hailee Steinfeld in Bumblebee, than similar movies like Jason Lee’s role in the Alvin & the Chipmunks franchise.
Tom & Jerry was written by Charles Schulz’s grandson Bryan Schulz, his Peanuts Movie co-writer Cornelius Uliano, and Kevin Costello (Brigsby Bear). The idea is apparently to film in London beween June and September, with an eye toward a release in 2020.
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