#INTERVIEW: “THE CAT IN THE HAT” TRAILER LAUNCH

While it won’t be in theatres till 2026, we got a very special glimpse of the Trailer for THE CAT IN THE HAT, adapted from Dr. Seuss’ beloved book by Co-Writers/Directors Alessandro Carloni and Erica Rivinoja. The Animated Feature stars Bill Hader, Bowen Yang, Matt Berry, Quinta Brunson, Xochitl Gomez, Paula Pell, and more.

At the special global press event were: Bill Hader (Executive Producer/”The Cat in the Hat”), Alessandro Carloni and Erica Rivinoja (Directors/Writers).

See the Trailer:

Hader very publicly declared at CinemaCon that he was actively chasing the titular role in The Cat in the Hat and willed this into existence. He comments about once playing the role in a Saturday Night Live sketch.

Hader: The SNL thing, they didn’t write that because I loved The Cat in the Hat. I think the Writers were going through an issue in their marriages, using The Cat in the Hat to indirectly comment to their spouses at home what was happening. I’ve always, like everyone, loved the book. I read it as a kid and read it to my kids. I’ve worked with these guys before on different projects, so the combination of these two things, and the chance to play such an iconic character was… Yes, so I did chase it.

Rivinoja: There was a mutual chasing. We were running towards each other.

Hader comments on his experience on SNL versus this Film.

Hader: It was funny, sometimes I’d be improvising and they’d go “Let’s do another one!”. I’d go too far off. It’s weird because they have it in their heads and I’m just reacting to the words. You just try different things. But they’re very good at communicating “Here’s what the scene is, here’s the emotion of it, and here’s what we need to try to convey.”. So like SNL, it’s taking in the material and improvising on top of it maybe.

Rivinoja talks about what new to expect in terms of the new.

Rivinoja: The Things are not well-behaved. They are consistent with the Things that you meet in the book, but as you saw in the trailer. we have Thing 1 and Thing 3 and many, many more. There’s many, many that come up. The Cat in the Hat is chaos and the Things are extra chaos top of that. They’re so cute. I love how cute they are.

Our team was really amazing at using Seuss‘ aesthetic and his iconic shape language and character language to really help design those. There’s so many new characters in the Movie, but they all feel like Dr. Seuss. They’re so talented.

Carloni talked about pairing actors with Hader in-studio, which isn’t always easy with animated films.

Carloni: We had the actors together in-studio a few times. It’s a rare thing. You don’t get to book your Actors all at once at the same time, but we still wanted to make sure Bill and his character had something to play against. Xochitl Gomez who plays Gabbie, one of our stars, she’s such a breath of fresh air when she comes into the room as opposed to this clowny little bastard (points to Hader).

Hader: (Gesturing to his phone) I’m looking at my stocks and uh!

Carloni: When Xotchitl and Quinta Brunson came in, we’d see this master spring to life. It was so exciting.

Hader: I’d have sunglasses on… are we ready?

Carloni: Picture that!

Hader: Sometimes people don’t want to do that in animation, they want to be on their own, but they were very open to that.

Warner Bros. Pictures Canada will be releasing February 27, 2026.

(Photo/video credit: Warner Bros. Pictures Canada)