Lazy Comic Kitty Leaps to Big Screen

The funny pages' favorite fat cat is finally making it to the big screen.

In "Garfield: The Movie," (search) which opens in theaters this weekend, the famously depressed illustrated feline comes to life through computer magic to help his doting owner Jon track down his pet-napped dog, Odie.

Bill Murray (search) is the mouthpiece for droll Garfield, the lazy hero of Jim Davis' comic strip.

"He feels like everybody's grandfather ... very cantankerous, and he's very kind of, you know, crude at times," co-star Jennifer Love Hewitt (search) told Fox News. "He likes things his way and he thinks the world revolves around him ... he's just like this ... little old man in a cat."

In the movie, which is geared to a young audience, the pampered kitty wallows away his days as lord of the local cats and bully to a neighbor's big, dumb, chained-up dog.

Actor Breckin Meyer, who plays Jon, told Fox News that Garfield is "a self-hating cat."

"He won't talk to other cats, he's too good for them. He hangs with dogs — he's got a posse of dogs."

At first, Garfield's biggest problems are how to swipe milk from a neighbor's porch and score a meal of his favorite dish, lasagna. But the fur flies when Garfield's "primary caregiver," Jon, smitten with his cat's veterinarian (Hewitt), agrees to adopt a rambunctious, dopey dog named Odie.

Working with a star the size of Garfield requires making a few sacrifices, his co-stars said.

"Everything is bigger with Garfield, he gets the bigger trailer... the bigger portion of lasagna," said Meyer. "He's got his name above the title ... and mine's way down there."

Hewitt joked that she knew her place on the set.

"It's important sometimes, to step back and let other people have the bigger trailers and the leading role. He's the Robert De Niro of cats, really."

Pete Hewitt ("Bill and Ted's Bogus Journey," "The Borrowers") directed the movie, and the screenplay is by Joel Cohen and Alec Sokolow, the writing team that contributed to "Toy Story" and last year's "Cheaper by the Dozen."

"Garfield" is a 20th Century Fox release.

Fox News' Mike Waco and The Associated Press contributed to this report.