New Tom & Jerry movie drops first plot details with a La La Land vibe
Tom and Jerry are plotting a big-screen comeback, with screenwriters Rashida Jones and Will McCormack teasing the first story details — and likening the tone to La La Land. Expect classic cat-and-mouse chaos with a sleek, modern sheen.
Tom and Jerry are heading for the big screen again, and this time the scriptwriters are leaning hard into romantic comedy territory, of all things. Rashida Jones and Will McCormack, who between them have penned a fair bit of sharp material, are tackling this new animated flick for Warner Bros. Animation. What's curious – or, depending on your attachment to childhood cartoons, slightly alarming – is they’re openly drawing parallels to, of all things, 'La La Land'. Yes, the Emma Stone/Ryan Gosling musical with a heart, jazz hands, and wistful staring across Los Angeles. Not what springs to mind when you hear 'cat versus mouse' – but here we are.
Let's talk plot (such as it is)
In a recent Variety interview, Jones and McCormack explained their angle: strip away all the chaotic slapstick and beneath it, you’ve actually got what they call a relationship comedy. Which, on reflection, sort of fits (though 'romance' is probably pushing it for a cat and a mouse who spend most of their waking hours trying to flatten each other with pianos).
This time, Tom and Jerry aren’t just left to chase each other round a house for 90 minutes. According to the writers, both animals are 'rescued' by a pair of humans – described by Jones and McCormack as 'do-gooders who eventually fall in love'. The twist? Instead of being grateful to their new owners, Tom and Jerry set out to ruin their lives – whether by trying to break up the humans or, in classic fashion, destroy each other in the process.
Here’s how Will McCormack summed up the concept:
'Tom and Jerry do whatever they can to kill the other or to break up their owners. It’s a rom-com in the style of La La Land. Why are these characters fighting so much? Because they want to be seen, and they want to be loved. The logline of our film is literally "Love is worth fighting for."'
Alright, so if you ever wanted to see a cartoon mouse and a cartoon cat wrestle with existential questions of love and self-worth while torpedoing a human romance, your time has come.
Some franchise trivia for your next pub quiz
- Tom and Jerry didn’t kick off as Tom and Jerry: their first animated outing was Puss Gets the Boot, released way back in 1940 under Metro-Goldwyn-Mayer. Only after that short did the pair take on their now-iconic names.
- The characters took a detour through some odd corporate shuffling in the 1980s: Ted Turner bought MGM in 1986, but quickly offloaded the studio – while cleverly keeping hold of its film library. So, when all was said and done, Tom and Jerry landed in the Warner Bros. vault, which is where they reside to this day.
No release date… yet
At the moment – and as is becoming a tedious trend with half of Hollywood – there’s no release date, no official casting, and nothing but speculation about when, or even if, this slightly surreal Tom and Jerry rom-com will make it to cinemas. We’ll see whether audiences are up for a cartoon feud with a side order of La La Land soul-searching, or if everyone just wants to see Tom hit with a frying pan again.