Wow, so the ‘Cats’ film adaptation is just giving actors CGI-fur??

British Fashion Council Photocall held at the Ritz Hotel

The first trailer for Cats, the Broadway musical-turned-film, drops on Friday. Until then, Universal Pictures dropped a sort of behind-the-scenes preview of the making of Cats, or more like the rehearsal of Cats, and it is…odd. I didn’t know before this very moment that the actors are going to be cat-ified by CGI. In the theater productions, actors were always made into cats through costumes, make-up and movement, right? But this is different. Taylor Swift and Idris Elba aren’t hanging out in cat-costume fittings, although I’m sure nothing would have made Tay happier. No, they probably had to wear stretchy green suits and then the “fur” and “cat ears” will be added with special effects. I am expecting some really crazy uncanny valley cat shenanigans, quite honestly.

But that’s not the only thing this rehearsal video reveals. We also get to see that director Tom Hooper is…making Taylor Swift dance. Oh my God. It’s not that Taylor cannot dance whatsoever. She can make general dancing movements, and some of those movements might even be in-time with the music. But I hope the Snake Fam can be real about this. I doubt it though. Every times I’m like “maybe dancing isn’t for Taylor,” the Snake Fam yells at me and says that Taylor KNOWS she’s a bad dancer and she’s doing it ironically and HOW DARE YOU. I don’t think that’s the case at all – Taylor seems to think she’s good with choreography. Is she though?

Oh Idris Elba, what is even happening. And Jason Derulo too, although I’m kind of getting a kick out of Derulo doing this. He’s a good dancer with a nice voice, so I hope they give him some stuff to do. But wow… CGI fur, Taylor Swift dancing with Idris Elba, and cats tap-dancing. This film is either going to be a must-watch mess or a complete disaster.

British Fashion Council Photocall held at the Ritz Hotel

Screencaps courtesy of ‘Cats’ video.

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34 Responses to “Wow, so the ‘Cats’ film adaptation is just giving actors CGI-fur??”

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  1. Digital Unicorn says:

    When I saw that they had Taylor dancing I instantly thought ‘ its going to be a disaster of a movie’ – girl cannot dance, even in the clips she was stiff. Will be interesting to see how its edited around that.

    Lets not forget that they have some amazing dancers in the cast, esp Francesca Hayward (Royal National Ballet prima ballerina) and Les Twins (identical twin french hip hop dancers who are AMAZING).

    I think it will be an interesting movie, I loved what he did with Les Mis.

    • LondonLozza says:

      I totally misread your last sentence as Les Mills and my first thought was “wow he rejigged body pump?!”. Clearly I need more tea this morning!

  2. a reader says:

    I’m betting on “beautiful disaster” that I’ll hate watch.

  3. Becks1 says:

    Oh man. Were it not for Taylor Swift, this would be so amazing IMO. She can’t dance, and in the clips where they showed her, she just looked so…unnatural.

    Jennifer Hudson is singing Memory, right? That’s not taylor?

    • margie says:

      correct. Jennifer is Grizabella.

    • broodytrudy says:

      Taylor is Bombalurina so she’ll be singing Macavity. I think it’s hilarious that she was cast as the “mean girl” cat.

  4. As one of the original performers of “drunk white girl at a wedding” dance moves, I resemble this remark.
    Taylor can dance and obviously gets into it and loves it. If she had rhythm, flow, coordination and even a smidge of flexibility…. she’d still be bad.

    I’m still going to watch it, furry Idris gives me the furries.

  5. Kiki says:

    THIS IS GOING TO BE SO BAD… NUFF SAID. This director is not in its right mind to think that Cats will be good for the movie audience. It is a catastrophy. CAT-AST-ROPHY

  6. HelloSunshine says:

    “This film is either going to be a must-watch mess or a complete disaster“

    Why not both? 😂

  7. Millenial says:

    I’ve never seen the musical, but I’m intrigued.

  8. ds says:

    I just can’t stand musicals. So I’ll skip this. Just to be clear – I loved the old musical films but I always end up snoozing watching a full on musical in the theatre or on tv. Just could never get through it. Seeing Taylor Swift trying to act and dance – if someone makes a clip mix of that I’ll probably watch it and have a good laugh.

    • Leriel says:

      Rocketman is musical (partly), and it’s so good, I watched it three times, so highly recommend.

      • ds says:

        uuu you’re right. I’ve been planning to go see it but still haven’t. When it’s an artist biopic, and the artist is a musician that i’m ok with 🙂

      • Marianne says:

        Partly???

        Lol. It is a full on musical.

  9. Leriel says:

    The worst is that this movie is clearly setting up for award season: December premiere, Oscar winning director, tons of british actors in cast. I’m seriously scared, because OG material is not really good, the academy standards and others organisations are pretty low our days (see Bohemian rhapsody GG win, and Bohemian rhapsody Oscar for best editing). So for not getting nominated, this movie must be like really bad, and I’m afraid it will be at least average with a little bit of strange to get these people to Oscars red carpet.

    Hope Beyonce and Rocketman will beat them during award season in anything, I am rooting for her average Disney song now, that’s what Universal made me do (no pun intended).

    • Marianne says:

      The globes will eat this sh** up for sure. The only thing Oscars I can reasonably see this getting a nom for is song (if something original is written) and maybe visual effects depending on how that digital fur turns out.

      • Leriel says:

        Well, digital fur against Lion King. The Jungle Book won it’s cgi Oscar 2 years ago, and I doubt Disney will let this one go easily.

  10. Lindy79 says:

    Taylor can’t act or dance so…….how exactly was she considered a good choice for this?
    The CGI fur sounds like a disaster.

  11. Valiantly Varnished says:

    I forgot Taylor was in this. And dancing?! Yeah…this is going to be a hot mess.

  12. Sheamus says:

    I’m still confused as to why they cast Taylor in it. They cast some amazing singers, amazing dancers….and then Taylor. I feel almost embarrassed for the movie. Every picture on the movie’s Instagram is flooded with Swifties comments about how amazing she is and how she “deserves to win an Oscar”, etc. Tbh all that kind of cheapens the movie for me.

  13. Daisy says:

    I appreciate Taylor’s efforts but she really can’t act to save her life. Also this movie is gonna be a whole mess and I CAN’T WAIT TO WATCH IT.

  14. OG Cleo says:

    Wait, Jennifer Hudson at 37 is playing Grizzabella? Wouldn’t Diana Ross or someone in her age bracket have been the actual age range for that role? Smh

  15. Marianne says:

    This film just looks like a big “oooof”.

    I hope it ends up being great…but yeah Im not expecting a whole lot. Trailer is tomorrow so that should be…interesting.

  16. M.A.F. says:

    I cannot stand this musical. The only decent song, IMO, is “Memories” and even then it depends on the singer (I’m sure Hudson will be great). Definitely will not watch this … in the theater. Might check it out once it hits streaming.

    • Digital Unicorn says:

      Yeah Cats is not one of my favs either but I will see the movie.

      Why can’t they make Hamilton into a movie?? That would be amazing,

      • Some chick says:

        I believe they are working on it. Right now it is running in multiple cities so everyone is pretty busy.

  17. Ann says:

    I am excited for this movie! It comes out around Christmas so that means there will be a movie I actually want to see with my mom on Christmas day.

    • OriginalRose says:

      Me too, i think my 5 year old will be SO into it. So i’m going to suspend all my concerns and go along for the giggles. I really like the scale of the set for the cats eye view. It reminds me of when I was a kid in the 80s and the royal ballet did a performance of a load of Beatrix Potter stories, we taped it off the telly and i watched it over and over again.

  18. MissAmerica says:

    Taylor can’t sing, dance or act. Yeah, she has a 5-note range for auto tuned pop music, but she definitely does not have a voice for show business or classic Broadway musicals. Her presence actually deters me from wanting to see this.

  19. Meg says:

    Superficial note, I think that Taylor needs to update her look as she ages. That same hair is not working IMO. But I can imagine having such a successful late teens and early 20s you’d want to live in the past and not change your look? A la Jennifer Anniston

  20. kerwood says:

    While watching the trailer all I could think of (besides ‘TRAINWRECK’) was what the fuck was Taylor Swift doing in a cast like THAT? I’ve never been a fan. I think the only song of hers that I know is ‘Shake It Off’. The only good thing I can say about her is that she apparently has an ongoing beef with Kim Kardashian and anyone who doesn’t like Kardashian can come sit by me. But it’s clear, even from the trailer, that the woman (I was going to say ‘girl’ and then I realized that, no matter how she acts, Taylor Swift is a grown ass woman) is waaaaaaay out of her league.

    I think Andrew Lloyd Webber is one of the most over-rated people in musical theatre so it’s a hard pass for me. Having Taylor Swift in the cast just makes it easier.

    • So cool says:

      Producers said they want her bcs she has a lot of fans, so they will sell tickets for this Trainwreck. Also she gave some money to produce it.

  21. Bee says:

    The trailer dropped. It’s literal nightmare fuel.