Mike Myers did not end up in the striped hat by chance. He played the title role in 2003’s The Cat in the Hat because of a legal settlement that obliged him to make a film for Universal Pictures and Imagine Entertainment, after he walked away from a big-screen version of his own Saturday Night Live character, Dieter.
With a new animated Cat in the Hat in theaters since November 6, the strange back story of the first one is worth retelling.
The movie that never got made
Dieter was the bored West German host of Sprockets, a recurring SNL sketch in black turtleneck and tights who begged guests to touch his monkey, Klaus. Myers first created the bit for the Second City stage in Toronto before bringing it to American TV in 1989.
By 2000, Universal had a feature lined up. Dieter’s Day was to be the directing debut of production designer Bo Welch, known for his work on Beetlejuice and Edward Scissorhands. Will Ferrell, David Hasselhoff and Jack Black were attached, Myers was expected to earn $20 million, and cameras were due to roll in August 2000 for a summer 2001 release.
Then, in June 2000, Myers pulled the plug, saying he was unhappy with his own script. The fallout was fast:
- Within a week, Universal sued him to recover $3.8 million it had already spent on preproduction.
- About a month later, Imagine Entertainment filed a second suit seeking more than $30 million in damages.
- Myers countersued both companies.
All of it was settled out of court. Under the deal, Myers and Welch agreed to make a different movie for Universal and Imagine as a replacement for the Dieter picture. That movie became The Cat in the Hat.
How the Cat landed on Myers
The role had been circling Hollywood for a while. Tim Allen was first in line, but scheduling on The Santa Clause 2 pushed him out. Will Ferrell, Robin Williams, Adam Sandler, Jerry Seinfeld and Dana Carvey were among the names considered before the part went to Myers in March 2002. Myers has said in an interview that he was a longtime fan of the book and that it was the first one he ever read.
Welch, the same director lined up for Dieter’s Day, got the job, so the settlement effectively moved the original team onto a new property. Shooting ran from October 2002 to January 2003, mostly in California, where crews built 24 houses for the cartoonish neighborhood.
The scorecard, then and now
Here is how the two screen versions of the Cat compare, using the published figures:
2003 live-action: $109 million budget, $134 million worldwide, an 82-minute running time and a $38.3 million opening weekend. Dr. Seuss’s widow, Audrey Geisel, disliked it so much that she barred any further live-action Seuss films, which killed a planned sequel.
2026 animated: $86 million budget, Bill Hader voicing the Cat, 107 minutes, a $20 million US opening and $33 million worldwide as of November 10.
Put another way, the 2003 film took in about $1.23 for every dollar it cost before marketing, a ratio studios usually treat as a disappointment. The new film is about 38 cents per dollar in after its first week, with the holiday weekends still ahead.
Seuss adaptations keep coming, and Badiyaa has looked at other family-film milestones this month, including 25 years of Harry Potter and the Philosopher’s Stone and Druski’s turn as the first digital creator to host SNL.
The live-action Cat in the Hat reached US theaters on November 21, 2003; it turns 23 next Saturday.
Further reading
- Wikipedia: The Cat in the Hat (2003 film)
- Wikipedia: Sprockets (Saturday Night Live)
- Wikipedia: The Cat in the Hat (2026 film)
Image: Chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff from Washington D.C, United States, CC BY 2.0 via Wikimedia Commons
This article was produced with AI assistance and reviewed by our Editorial Desk. How we work.
