Warner Bros. Picture has released the trailer for The Cat in the Hat, the film featuring Bill Hader as the titular character. It is directed by Alessandro Carloni and Erica Rivinoja, with the former’s credits including co-directing Kung Fu Panda 3 and the latter having worked on Trolls and The Addams Family. Unlike the live-action version starring Mike Myers in 2003, the upcoming 2026 film will be an animated feature.

“I’m a big reader and I think those were the first books I remember,” Hader said about Dr. Seuss books during the trailer sneak peek event last week. “Reading on my own, it’s a habit I had. I get in bed and read a book. And it’s like I started that with those books and I remember collecting them.”

In addition to co-directing Kung Fu Panda 3, Carloni has worked on Kung Fu Panda, Kung Fu Panda 2 and the How to Train Your Dragon trilogy as a story artist.

“But the unique thing, probably, about [The Cat in the Hat], which is based on this book, is the fact that we do traverse different universes and different worlds,” Carloni said. “And so Erica and I truly realized that we can take advantage of that and use it as an opportunity to create different aesthetics.”

The multiverse in film has been a concept that allows characters who normally wouldn’t meet each other to encounter each other. The Cat in the Hat brings that conept with the different Dr. Seuss worlds.

“We figure, let’s just create this as if it’s the world of Seuss,” he continued. “But then the Cat enters the real world. And so we created a world that is far more grounded and believable and not quite photorealistic, still very stylized, but still much more believable and relatable when it comes to the behavior of the light and the look of the movie.”

The kids in the movie will go a fantastical journey through their own memories thanks to the Cat.

“And so the unique thing about this movie is that you get to see multiple movies in one, in a way, because we truly traverse different universes,” Carloni explained. “We truly try to put that on screen as an adventure, as we traverse different realms and different environments.”

Comedy is an important part of The Cat in the Hat, and Erica Rivinoja has a comedic background with writing credits including Borat Subsequent Moviefilm and Cloudy with a Chance of Meatballs 2 and story credits including Trolls, Girls Trip and The Addams Family.

“We wanted to make ourselves laugh with it,” Rivinjoa said. “We have long histories in comedy. I think a lot of people can think that, ‘Oh, it’s for children, so you have to talk down and make it not sophisticated and
smart.’ But we wanted to make it really, really fun for literally the whole family. There’s some sneaky stuff in there for adults. There’s really funny physical humor for everyone because everyone loves it. There’s a lot of very classy fart jokes.”

About The Cat in the Hat

Synopsis: 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!

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

The film is directed by Alessandro Carloni and Erica Rivinoja. This marks Warner Bros. Pictures Animation’s first full-length feature film, The Cat in the Hat releases in North America on February 27, 2026, and internationally beginning 25 February 2025.