Cat vs. mouse, the most ancient of conflicts, a microcosm of the dark nihilism of nature. A harbinger of the cruel fate waiting for us all at the end of the line. Or perhaps—wait, no, it’s just a cartoon. One of the most well known and moderately beloved: Tom & Jerry, a series of Hanna Barbera shorts that has since turned into a series of bizarre adaptation decisions, bad reboots and baffling crossovers.
Now, Tom & Jerry is back. We’ve heard rumblings of Warner Bros.’s upcoming reboot, one of those CGI/live action hybrids that were all the rage a solid decade ago, for a while, but now we know that it’s coming, and it’s coming sooner than we think.
As the Hollywood Reporter explains, Warner Bros. has moved the release date for the film from its slated 2021 date to December 23, 2020. Which is a pretty surefire guarantee that, yeah, this one is actually getting off the ground.
So let’s take a look at what’s coming, which hopefully won’t traumatise our writers the way the last Tom and Jerry adaptation did.
Directed by Tim Story, the film is actually being made with an all-star cast including Chloë Grace Moretz, Michael Pena, Ken Jeong, Rob Delany, Jordan Bolger, and Pallavi Sharda. It’ll tell the story of a hotel employee (Moretz) trying to evict Jerry from a hotel room, which he lives in—as a mouse? Or as a mouse-person?
I’m somewhat unclear here on the level of realism. But to get Jerry out of the hotel and secure her job, she turns to Tom, that devious old cat. And thus does the dark cycle continue.
Tom and Jerry comes out December 23, 2020, and may God guide us free of the cruelty of nature’s bloodlust.