Alcon Entertainment has acquired the film rights to the comic strip Garfield from creator Jim Davis. Davis will serve as an executive producer on a fully animated film adaptation that Alcon has put into the pipeline.
Garfield is a comic strip that follows a literal fat cat as he lazes about his owner’s apartment, pines for lasagna, and judges his owner, Jon Arbuckle, and Jon’s other pet, the dimwitted dog Odie.
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Garfield debuted in 1978 and became a pop culture sensation in the 1980s. Collected editions of the comic strip climbed the best-seller lists, leading to a huge merchandising push and an animated series that aired on Saturday mornings.
Garfield holds the Guinness world record for the most widely syndicated comic strip. Garfield has appeared in 2,580 newspapers and journals worldwide, and has been read by an estimated 260 million people.
Garfield has taken to the big screen before, in the 2004 live action Garfield film. That film featured a computer animated Garfield, voice by Bill Murray, and Brekin Meyer as Jon.
The new film will be completely CG-animated. John Cohen (Despicable Me, The Angry Birds Movie), Steven P. Wagner, Andrew Kosove, and Broderick Johnson will produce the film for Alcon. Amuse’s Bridget McMeel will executive produce alongside Davis.
Alcon, who is also handling the upcoming sequel to Blade Runner, is hoping to turn Garfield into an ongoing franchise of CG-animated films. Cohen’s success with Despicable Me, and the more recent success of The Angry Birds Movie, suggests the project is in good hands.
