Cohen, ‘Garfield Movie’ purrfect fit

DETROIT — “The Garfield Movie” doesn’t happen without an email from John Cohen to “Garfield” creator Jim Davis.

Let’s back up. “The Garfield Movie” doesn’t happen without John Cohen first growing up in West Bloomfield Township, devouring the adventures of the lasagna-loving and Monday-hating cartoon feline. As a kid, Cohen pored over the comics in the newspaper and checked out the collected adventures of Garfield from the Farmington library, and he always had a great fondness for the cuddly orange icon of laziness.

Years later, Cohen found himself as a successful Hollywood producer, having brought “Despicable Me” and the two “Angry Birds” movies to the big screen. So when he reached out to “Garfield” creator Jim Davis about doing an all computer-animated “Garfield” adventure, the first of its kind, it started the ball rolling on the project.

Last week, “The Garfield Movie,” featuring the voices of Chris Pratt (as Garfield), Samuel L. Jackson (as Garfield’s dad, Vic) and “Ted Lasso’s” Hannah Waddingham (as the villainous Jinx), among others, opened in theaters and is likely to be one of the summer’s biggest animated films.

“It just came from my love of Garfield,” says Cohen, on a Zoom call recently from Los Angeles, where he lives with his wife and two daughters, ages 7 and 10. “It’s just something that I have loved forever, and so having the chance to work on this has been the greatest thrill and privilege.”

‘The Movie Kid’

Cohen, 48, has been a fan of animation and the movies since he can remember. He was drawing his own comics — including his own Garfield strips, some of which he’d eventually share with Davis — early on and was making his own flip books in elementary school. Among his teachers and classmates, he was known as “The Movie Kid.”

He became involved in Detroit’s nonprofit media arts program DAFT — short for Digital Arts, Film and Television — and he counts late DAFT founding member John Prusak as a mentor. By first grade, Cohen was picking up prizes in the Michigan Student Film Festival and he was interviewed on local TV, an award-winning filmmaker with a burgeoning media profile whose primary mode of transportation was still his bicycle.

DAFT helped him see his goal of working in the movies was possible. “When you’re young, it feels so distant, it doesn’t feel real or achievable,” says Cohen. “But I was so lucky to have amazing teachers in the Detroit area.”

As a movie-obsessed teen, Cohen remembers reading Kathy Huffhines’ movie reviews in the Detroit Free Press, “and when she gave ‘Edward Scissorhands’ a 10 out of 10, that was so exciting for me,” he says. He picked up a job as a clerk at a Keego Harbor video store during high school, and for college he attended New York University’s prestigious Tisch School of the Arts, landing a summer internship working for mega-producer Scott Rudin (“Clueless,” “The Truman Show”). That turned into a job and sent him on his path in Hollywood.

Animation was always his first love. “It’s the fact that anything is possible, there are no stories or characters or anything that is really off limits,” Cohen says. “It’s also just the magic of the storytelling, the physical comedy, and the beauty of the animation.”

Cohen eventually landed at 20th Century Fox’s animation arm, where he earned credits on 2005’s “Robots,” 2006’s “Ice Age: The Meltdown” and 2007’s “Alvin and the Chipmunks.” He worked his way up to producer on “Despicable Me” and the “Angry Birds” movies, so when he reached out to “Garfield” creator Davis with an idea on bringing “Garfield” back to the screen, he had the clout to get it done.

Big screen cat

Davis, 78, has seen “Garfield” come to the screen before — Bill Murray voiced the tabby cat in 2004’s “Garfield: The Movie” and its 2006 sequel, “Garfield: A Tail of Two Kitties” — but those films mixed live action with animation. Cohen wanted to do an entirely animated “Garfield” movie, and he flew to meet Davis in Indiana armed with a couple of story ideas, including one involving Garfield and his father, a storyline that had never been broached in the “Garfield” universe, which dates back to 1978.

“That idea was something that sparked Jim immediately, and he saw the potential in that story,” Cohen says.

With Davis on board, Cohen partnered with a team of producers at production company Alcon Entertainment and assembled a creative team that includes director Mark Dindal (“The Emperor’s New Groove”), screenwriters David Reynolds (“The Emperor’s New Groove”), Mark Torgove and Paul A. Kaplan (both from TV’s “Spin City”) and production designer Pete Oswald (whom Cohen worked with on the “Angry Birds” movie).

It’s been a lengthy process bringing the movie to screens; the project was announced back in 2016, and production stretched through the COVID-19 pandemic. (Pratt was announced as the voice of the kitty in late 2021.) Cohen says he’s a hands-on guy when it comes to production, and he was very involved with the nuts and bolts of the creative process, all the way through to the movie’s marketing.