First 'Tom and Jerry' Movie Trailer Crashes The Party

When Warner Bros announced they were planning on making a slate of movies based on the classic Hanna-Barbera characters they revealed the first two in production. The first was a new animated Scooby-Doo movie that was intended to launch a shared Hanna-Barbera cinematic universe- that turned out to be last summer's SCOOB! The second was an animated/live-action hybrid movie starring the iconic cat and mouse duo Tom and Jerry.

Eyes collectively rolled as years worth of the likes of Yogi Bear, Alvin and The Chipmunks, The Smurfs and Garfield have led to low expectations. Terrifying notions of 'realistic' or updated versions of T&J jumped to mind.

However, now we have the first trailer it's a relief to discover that Warner Animation Group have decided to keep Tom and Jerry's look reassuringly true to their traditional look. Although not true 2D, the CG animation has a 'cel-shaded' look, that at first glance looks like it could be mistaken for the real thing. It has a Who Framed Roger Rabbit? approach of putting cartoon characters in a live-action film, rather than trying to make the animated characters appear to blend in.

The film will see the two initially going their separate ways and head "to the big city". Purists will be disappointed that the movie continues the idea (first started back in the 70s) that Tom and Jerry are actually friends. 

However, the two will find themselves in some classic cat and mouse hijinx when Tom is hired as a mouser by a Hotel that Jerry is terrorising. We don't know quite how this is going to turn out, but at least it seems truer to the spirit of the original shorts than the 1992 Tom and Jerry The Movie  (where they could talk) or Tom and Jerry: Willy Wonka And The Chocolate Factory. The trailer has plenty of slapstick action and cartoon violence of the sort the original shorts are famed for.

Tom and Jerry is directed by Tim Story (The Fantastic Four, Barbershop) and written by Kevin Costello (Brigsby Bear). The human cast is led by Chloe Grace Moretz and features Michael Peña, Rob Dulaney, Ken Jeong and Pallavi Sharda.

The film is currently optimistically set for a theatrical release on March 5, 2021, but that, of course, depends on a good chunk of cinemas being open again and 2020 not having one-upped itself with some other final act calamity. Fingers crossed.

Check out the trailer below.