The fur is flying in Hollywood
Producers of upcoming Cats movie respond to Twitter backlash over trailer
LOS ANGELES The producers of Cats have seen the memes and read the mean tweets that greeted the first trailer for the big-screen adaptation of Andrew Lloyd Webber’s stage smash.
When the initial teaser was launched this past summer, social media commentators feasted on the way that an A-list cast that includes Taylor Swift, Idris Elba, Jennifer Hudson, James Corden and Judi Dench had been feline-ized with whiskers and swishing tails, calling the transformation creepy.
The Us$100-million film is being released by Universal and produced by Working Title, the studio’s long-term partner.
Eric Fellner and Tim Bevan, the two heads of London-based Working Title, are taking a “there’s no such thing as bad publicity” stance, noting that the online furor raised the movie’s profile.
“What does one say?” says Fellner. “The reality is that 100 million people or more saw the trailer and, yes, there were some people (who) didn’t like it. And as is the world we live in, those who didn’t like it were the most vociferous.”
Bevan has his own theory: “They were probably people who didn’t know Cats, and the fact is they were either anticipating something animated or something that was on four legs. Among people who know Cats, the reaction was pretty solid.”
Moreover, the cats themselves have changed in appearance.
The versions that were shown in the initial trailer were not the finished renditions.
They were the result of a mad scramble to get visual effects shots completed in time for the teaser, says Fellner.
“You’re seeing subtle changes,” he says. “The characters have progressed and are progressing every day.”
Cats reunites Fellner and Bevan with Tom Hooper, the director of the Oscar-winning smash Les Misérables, which Working Title also produced. Fellner is taking the lead on Cats — the Working Title duo are listed as producers on all of their films, but divide their workload so that one of them oversees much of the work on an individual production.
“Eric’s been instrumental to Cats from the beginning,” says Hooper.
“From the moment I found out that Universal owned the rights to Cats through Steven Spielberg, Eric was the obvious producer to go on the journey with. He’s been the most amazing supporter of the movie throughout.”
Cats was first purchased for Spielberg in the 1980s, but languished in development hell. Bringing the story of a group of cats trying to determine who will be resurrected and reborn to a new life presented certain challenges. The Working Title team spent three years developing effects, dubbed “digital fur technology,” that enable its stars to be covered in photorealistic fur.