THE CAT IN THE HAT Gets ‘Stranger Danger’ Pepper Spray to the Eye in Fun Animated Movie Trailer

Speaking to Nerdist at a press conference in celebration of the trailer, The Cat in the Hat‘s Alessandro Carloni and Erica Rivinoja share how they went about modernizing the iconic cat in this animated movie, while retaining his beloved roots.

They revealed, “The Cat in the Hat is a very beloved character and he’s classic and iconic and everyone has a relationship to him because he’s really this sort of wish fulfillment character. We call him this agent of chaos. And it’s just sort of what every kid loves and wants is to just sort of have this day of craziness and chaos. And we really tried to bring in what people love about the original book, which is a cat shows up, everybody goes crazy and has fun.”

But as we see in this trailer, The Cat in the Hat animated movie takes us deeper into the Cat in the Hat’s existence than we’ve gone before in Dr. Seuss’ world. Carloni and Erica Rivinoja add, “We kind of used the book more of a jumping point for us in the sense that the book became a question for us, which is, is this cat really just out there to have a good time for himself and making a mess, or is there more to it? We look at the book and realize that at the end of the book, the kid seems to be a little more confident with himself.”

The pair then pose what might be the greatest question ever, “Could it be that the cat is actually the greatest child psychologist? And so we basically used the book as our starting point, that’s how our movie starts, and then our movie becomes an expansion on that adventure. We decided to follow the cat at the end of the book to find out where does this guy go and discover, in fact, the truth about him. That it’s his job.” His purpose, if you will.

Well, we never thought about The Cat in the Hat as a child psychologist ourselves, but we do not feel opposed to it either. We can already tell from the trailer that the animated The Cat in the Hat movie has all the beginnings of colorful, zany, absurd, but wonderful adventure.

In addition to the trailer, The Cat in the Hat animated movie’s official synopsis shares:

Meet the Cat in the Hat you don’t know! In the wonderfully whimsical tradition of Dr. Seuss, The Cat in the Hat comes to the big screen in his animated theatrical feature film debut, an all-new, epic adventure with an edge, where mischief, magic and mayhem reign supreme.

Doing what he does best, the Cat—voiced by Bill Hader—spreads joy to kids in his hilarious, signature and singularly irreverent way, transporting them and audiences on a fantastical journey through a world they’ve never seen before.

In the film, our hero takes on his toughest assignment yet for the I.I.I.I. (Institute for the Institution of Imagination and Inspiration, LLC): to cheer Gabby and Sebastian, a pair of siblings struggling with their move to a new town. Known for taking things too far, this could be this agent of chaos’s last chance to prove himself…or lose his magical hat!

Starring alongside Hader are Xochitl Gomez, Matt Berry, Quinta Brunson, and Paula Pell, and featuring Tiago Martinez, Giancarlo Esposito, America Ferrera, Bowen Yang, and Tituss Burgess.

The Cat in the Hat will make his animated movie debut when the film releases in US theaters on February 27, 2026, and internationally beginning 25 February, 2025. And we will be sat for The Cat in the Hat.