Chris Pratt's voice acting in The LEGO Movie is potentially the main reason he's been cast to voice famous animated characters, Mario and Garfield. Nintendo announced Chris Pratt would provide the voice of Mario in the plumber's animated debut, to be released Christmas 2022. Additionally, Chris Pratt has also signed on to voice Garfield the cat in another computer-animated film currently in development.
Chris Pratt charmed his way into audiences' hearts with his endearing supporting role as Andy Dwyer in the sitcom Parks & Recreation. After several supporting roles, Pratt then made the leap to leading man in 2014 with the one-two punch of The LEGO Movie and Marvel's Guardians of the Galaxy. He further cemented his A-List status the following year by headlining another famous franchise, Jurassic World. Both Guardians of the Galaxy and Jurassic World have third installments on the horizon. However, the internet has turned slightly on Chris Pratt's lately due to controversies surrounding his personal and political life.
The casting of Chris Pratt as the voice of both Mario and Garfield has resulted in further mocking online, but his previous work as a voice artist goes some way in justifying the rationale behind these decisions. Pratt is no stranger to voice acting, having starred in both The LEGO Movie and its sequel, The LEGO Movie 2: The Second Part. Pratt also voiced elf Barley in Pixar's Onward. When The LEGO Movie was first announced, it was widely criticized as a blatant cash grab to sell LEGO sets. However, the film itself turned out to be a pleasant surprise, full of wit, heart, and laugh-out-loud humor, anchored by Chris Pratt's charming voice acting as the lovable Emitt. The LEGO Movie was a resounding success both commercially and artistically, and it's easy to see why studios would want to try and replicate that success by securing Chris Pratt to voice their famous animated characters.
Historically animated characters were voiced by talented voice actors instead of famous celebrities (the exception being Walt Disney voicing Micky Mouse). The character was the draw (Bugs Bunny, Winnie The Pooh, etc.), rather than who was voicing them. Robin Williams' performance voicing the Genie in Aladdin in 1992 then started a trend in Hollywood to have famous names in animated movies. This reached a head when Shrek was released in 2001, with the marketing more concerned with the celebrity voices than the characters, and since then, almost every animated movie has a long list of famous voices attached. While Chris Pratt's name has bankability (he scored a recent streaming hit for Amazon with The Tomorrow War despite middling reviews), it would be disingenuous to assume that he was only cast as Mario and Garfield for his A-List status. He's a talented voice artist in his own right, as evidenced in The LEGO Movie.
In the end, the quality of the upcoming animated films will determine whether Chris Pratt was the right casting choice for Mario and Garfield. Cinematic history is full of examples where an actor's casting has been met with derision and dismay by fans, only for the naysayers to be silenced by an iconic performance. Given Chris Pratt's proven track record as a voice actor, there is every chance that his interpretation of Mario and Garfield could have the same success as The LEGO Movie.
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