Directed by: Lawrence Guterman
Written by: Glenn Ficarra & John Requa

Production Started on: Computer animation of this movie started in early 2000; live-action production started in Vancouver, Canada on June 19th, 2000 and wrapped on November 9th, 2000.
Released on: July 4, 2001
Running Time: 87 minutes

Budget: $60 million
U.S. Opening Weekend: $21.707 million over 3,040 screens
Box-Office: $93.38 million in the U.S., $200.7 million worldwide
 
 

CAST
 

Dogs (voices)
Young pup... Tobey Maguire
Ivy... Susan Sarandon
Sam, a large friendly dog... Michael Clarke Duncan
Calico... Jon Lovitz
Electronic expert... Joe Pantoliano

Humans
Mr. Brody (scientist who invented the vaccine)... Jeff Goldblum
Mrs. Brody (the scientist's wife)... Elizabeth Perkins

And
Butch... Alec Baldwin
Scott... Alexander Pollock
 
 

STORY

There is a secret war going on between cats and dogs that humans don't even know about, a war that could effect the entire planet. In an average American household, a father scientist has come up with a cure for people who are allergic to dogs.  The cats fear that this might tip the global scales in favor of the dogs, and set out on a covert mission to find and undermine the formula.  The dogs aim to defend the household from this feline invasion.

The scientist's young, eager pup is asked by the dog world's secret service to protect the vaccine, with the help of a few allies: a wise and worldly dog who looks out for him; a big, friendly dog who isn't quite the military operative he thinks he is; and a small, hyperkinetic dog who is an electronics expert.
 

INTERESTING FACTS

  The project was initially developed by Warner Bros. Feature Animation as a vehicle for none other than Sylvester the Cat. The first draft of the script also featured Sam Sheepdog, the laconic protagonist of a series of Chuck Jones cartoons from the 1950s (and while Sylvester is gone, Sam has remained as a kind of homage and is voiced in the film by Michael Clarke Duncan). Why the change to digitized live action? "I think Warners saw some opportunity to break ground," John Requa, co-writer, with Glenn Ficarra, of "Cats & Dogs." "They said, 'If you do an animated film, how much attention will it get? But if you do it CG,'" with computer graphics, the possibilities seemed infinite.  After the entire film had been storyboarded for animation, plans were changed to shoot the picture largely in live action, with an array of real dogs and cats, and state-of-the-art digitally animated lip-syncing and facial expressions created by Rhythm & Hues, the shop that pioneered the talking-animal movie genre with 1995's Babe.

  Warner Brothers acquired this pitch in 1998 from John Requa and Glenn Ficarra.  Warners is developing as a potential franchise.

  The voice and live action casting were announced officially in late Spring 2000.

  A scene from the original screenplay had the cats infiltrating the house "by sending in a cute kitten. In truth, the kitten isn't young, but is an older cat operative who's undergone painful surgery to look cute and young. The family  finds it on its doorstep and takes it in.  The puppy knows that the kitten's a bad guy, so he starts to try to figure out how to get it out of there. The kitten, meanwhile, coughs up a massive hairball which actually has a secret compartment inside!  He opens the compartment and pulls out some fake dog crap, shuffling it behind the puppy. The family sees that the puppy has pooped on the carpet, and he gets smacked on the butt and sent out doors...  Leaving the kitten inside the house all alone!"

  On November 30, 2000 a first trailer was made available, and the title changed officially from Like Cats and Dogs to Cats & Dogs.

  On January 24, 2001 -just a few days after President George W. Bush started his mandate-, Warner Bros. distributed a light-hearted press release, claiming that in light of the recently exposed battle between former White House pets Socks and Buddy, the pair have been offered positions as technical advisors on the film. Warner Bros. Picture's President of Domestic Marketing, Brad Ball said, "It is our belief that the simmering rivalry between Socks and Buddy imminently qualifies them to serve as expert consultants for our film, Cats & Dogs, which tackles the scratchy subject of the on-going war between the species. Our search for authenticity knows no boundaries. I cannot recall when our nation has seen a bigger rivalry unless it was the time that Sylvester and Spike ended up in traction over Tweety."

  "Babe was a genius film," says director Larry Guterman. "It was also a fable. They could get away with narration. We can't. We're a comedic spy thriller for the family.  [Going beyond what's been done before] is what the market expects, that's what you promise the studio.  We know that people have seen Babe, and after five minutes, when the animals are talking, audiences, especially kids, will say, 'Oh, yeah, it's a talking-animal movie,' " Guterman says. "Now, we've got to deliver on everything else. It's not good enough that they talk and perform. They have to pull off a Matrix kung fu scene.  You have these crazy puppeteers who are like improv comedians performing Mr. Tinkles.  Then we have an animator in (another studio) who's also doing Mr. Tinkles. Then there's the dialogue that (Will & Grace's) Sean Hayes is doing, and then we have the live Mr. Tinkles standing on the sidelines. We try to integrate all these.  Puppets allow you to get some shots that you can't get with a live dog," Guterman says. "We use them in specific cases, say, if you want a dog to be still and not be panting for food." The computer stand-ins usually function as a kind of stunt double.  The computer-generated images are used, he says, "when a dog leaps an impossibly high leap or he smacks into something or he does something that physically we're unable to do with a puppet or live dog."  A real-life animal is re-created, down to the very last hair, via computer. For example, in the 3-D version of a long-haired cat, there are 14 million hairs that have to be rendered on computer for each frame. Consequently, filmmakers say, it takes 24 hours to fashion just one frame of that particular cat. "They've got 200 computers running simultaneously," Guterman says.  Increasingly, these computer versions are hogging the spotlight and doing what is known as "hero shots," rather than being confined to stunt-double status.   "We created a couple characters that really don't exist anywhere, except in CGI," deFaria says. "They're ninja cats, based on the image of a live cat. They look like a cat, but they're free to behave in different ways and do un-catlike things."

  Elizabeth Perkins commented that the shoot was "unbelievable! At any given time there were 30 cats and 20 dogs on stage. There are 700 special effects in the film, and we had a filmmaking crew of 200 people and five cameras. It's a huge endeavor... It's almost like we've taken a movie like Babe and inserted Mission Impossible. That's an incredible feat to try and pull off."

  "We wanted to introduce live animals in a natural setting," explains producer Chris DeFaria, "and then, through the use of [effects], take the audience along an escalating path of credibility until, by the time they see a dog leaping off a two-story building onto a log-loader being driven by a cat, they're OK with it."

  "It's very difficult [to do scenes with thin air, months ahead of the special effects]," admits Sean Hayes. "There's actually one scene where the cat wasn't animated at all and Larry (Gutterman), the director, was telling me 'He's going to fall, and then he's going to say this line and then you have to punch the dog and you have to have a reaction,' and you're like, 'Well, okay, I'll just close my eyes and do the lines.' It was hard, but fun."

  "You know, the ending is completely different from the ending that they shot," says Sean Hayes, voice of the maniacal Persian cat Mr. Tinkles. "It originally ended where [Mr. Tinkles] goes to either an asylum for animals or a kennel and it was very [Tim] Burton-esque. This woman is typing and the Sophie [character – one of the humans in the film] – brings Mr. Tinkles up to the counter and she’s like, ‘I’m here because Mr. Tinkles has been a bad kitty and he needs to be put away.’ And the lady turns and she’s just smiling and nodding and being very odd. Then her head just pops open and all these cats come out of the body. That’s how it ended, meaning the cats were going to take over the world. They shot the whole thing and it was the coolest thing I’d ever seen. I was like, ‘That’s so freaky and cool!’ That left it wide open for a sequel. I would have loved that ending, but it freaked kids out."

  The Hollywood Reporter announced in July 2003 that Malibu's Most Wanted helmer John Whitesell is in negotiations to replace Kevin Lima (Tarzan) as the director of Warner Bros. Pictures/Village Roadshow Pictures' live-action/CGI sequel Cats & Dogs 2: Tinkles' Revenge. The project, which was written by the film's original writers, John Requa and Glenn Ficarra, is expected to be in theaters by summer 2005. Tab Murphy is revising the script, which will continue the wars between canines and felines.