By his own claim, Bill Murray ostensibly only signed on to voice Garfield due to a misunderstanding: he saw Joel Cohen’s name on the script and misread it as Joel Coen, thinking he was doing a Garfield movie from the guy who made Fargo. So, apparently, credit to his Get Low director Aaron Schneider and writer C. Gaby Mitchell for getting Murray to again sign on to voice a talking pet.
According to The Hollywood Reporter, the voice of Disney’s Baloo has agreed to make his next furry-fetishized performance in Schneider’s Bum’s Rush. Murray will play Bum, a stray dog who crosses paths with a “custom boot maker.” That sounds like a job from Rom-Com Trade School, so, fittingly, the part will be played by Anne Hathaway. Fellow Get Low-er Robert Duvall is also in talks to join the cast.
The film is described as a timely indie buddy comedy made by filmmakers who love dogs “now more than ever,” so you have to figure this thing is some pap about a woman begrudgingly finding companionship in a mutt during the isolation of quarantine. Either that or the dog, in Bill Murray’s voice, clarifies to her what it would mean to defund the police. “You can be a boot maker without being a boot licker…”
