‘Weird’ Cats is the cream for Lloyd Webber
Creator of musical says digital wizardry of film trailer is extraordinary, but viewers’ reaction is mixed
HOLLYWOOD films often promise to show familiar faces “as you’ve never seen them before”. In the case of the new Cats adaptation, they really mean it.
Dame Judi Dench, Sir Ian Mckellen, Idris Elba and Taylor Swift, to name a few, have been rendered as felines using digital technology.
The effect, unveiled in a trailer yesterday after months of secrecy, is startling. For Andrew Lloyd Webber, on whose musical the film is based, it is spectacular.
He watched the trailer in the company of Swift, the pop star who plays the singing and dancing Bombalurina. “She wanted to see it about 10 times because the moment when she comes on as a cat is quite wonderful,” he said.
“They’ve got this technique, which I don’t think has ever been done before, which isn’t like CGI but it turns you into a cat. So you know it’s Taylor Swift but she’s a cat. And it’s extraordinary.”
The actors wore motion capture suits during filming and the special effects were added later with what Tom Hooper, the director, described as “digital fur technology to create the most perfect covering of fur”.
On social media, where the trailer was launched, the reaction was somewhat mixed. “The first trailer for #Catsmovie is appropriately terrifying and insane, like a drug-induced nightmare made real. I can’t wait!” wrote the film critic for Forbes magazine. Another user said: “Somehow the people in Cats look more nude than if they were actually nude, and it’s weird.”
Due for release in December, Hooper’s film is the latest iteration of Old Possum’s Book of Practical Cats, the collection of whimsical poems written by TS Eliot. The West End musical opened in 1981 and on Broadway a year later. At one point it was the longest-running show on both sides of the Atlantic. Dame Judi Dench has been cast in the film as Old Deuteronomy, the wisest of the cats. “I was cast in 1981 just before we opened, and I snapped my Achilles tendon. And I thought that was my history with Cats. But it turns out not to be,” she said. Hooper was behind the 2012 screen adaptation of Les Misérables, which was nominated for eight Oscars and grossed $440 million (£350 million). He has high hopes for Cats, saying: “We came up with a 2019 version that’s entirely our own.
“At the centre of this incredibly entertaining, comedic, fantastical musical is a very timely story about the importance of inclusion and redemption.”
Jennifer Hudson plays Grizabella and will sing Memory, made famous by Elaine Paige. The role of Victoria, a shy white kitten who will be a central figure in the film, is played by Francesca Hayward, principal dancer with The Royal Ballet. She said: “I’ve always just done ballet, and I feel like I’m sort of living the dream. It’s just very surreal for someone who doesn’t sing in public to suddenly be singing with Jennifer Hudson.” Cats also stars Rebel Wilson as Jennyanydots and Mckellen, who is Gus the Theatre Cat.