How long does it take the Cat in the Hat to make a mess? Apparently, somewhere between an hour and a half and nearly two hours, depending on which movie listing you believe.
The upcoming animated The Cat in the Hat movie starring Bill Hader as the voice of Dr. Seuss’ famous troublemaker, has a runtime problem. Fandango and Cinemark currently list the movie at 1 hour and 54 minutes (and so does Regal), while The Numbers lists it at 91 minutes. A figure of 98 minutes has also been circulating, but that number has not been independently confirmed as the official runtime.
So, how long is this movie actually going to be? That’s still a surprisingly reasonable question to ask about a film based on a children’s book that takes only a few minutes to read.
The length becomes even more amusing when you look at the Cat’s previous trips to the screen. The 2003 live-action The Cat in the Hat, starring Mike Myers, runs just 82 minutes. That movie found plenty of room for the Cat’s bizarre antics with Myers doing the sort of comedy that made parents wonder whether this was really a movie for their kids.
Before that, the 1971 animated television special adapted the same book into a musical adventure running about 25 minutes. It was made for a half-hour television slot, commercials and all. The story didn’t need a feature-length running time to introduce the Cat, turn a quiet house upside down, and get everything back under control before Mom returned.
The new movie is taking a much bigger swing. Rather than simply retelling the original story, the animated feature sends the Cat on a new assignment for the Institute for the Institution of Imagination and Inspiration. He has to cheer up siblings Gabby and Sebastian after their family moves to a new town. The job could cost him his magical hat if he fails.
That’s a lot more story than the original book contains, so the filmmakers clearly have room to expand the world. Bill Hader leads a voice cast that also includes Matt Berry, Quinta Brunson, Xochitl Gomez and Giancarlo Esposito. The film is directed by Erica Rivinoja and Alessandro Carloni, with Warner Bros. bringing the character back to theaters on November 6, 2026.
Still, there’s a difference between expanding a story and making audiences wonder whether the Cat has wandered into somebody else’s movie. A 98-minute runtime would already make this the longest of the three screen adaptations discussed here. At 114 minutes, the new film would run 32 minutes longer than the Mike Myers version, which somehow managed to squeeze its strange, occasionally unsettling comedy into a much shorter visit.
Of course, a longer animated movie isn’t automatically a bad thing. The new version has its an opportunity to build a much bigger world around the Cat. There’s no reason a Dr. Seuss adaptation has to stick to the length of the original book.
But until the runtime confusion is cleared up, it’s hard not to wonder what exactly is taking so long. The Cat in the Hat has spent decades making a mess and leaving other people to clean it up. Now he might need nearly two hours to do it. At least the movie’s runtime gives parents plenty of time to ask the question every kid will eventually ask: Is it over? I have to peeeeeeeeeeee so bad.
