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Cats Musical Wikimedia.jpg

Today in 'We Swear This Isn't a Joke' News...

By Kayleigh Donaldson | Film | July 20, 2018 |

By Kayleigh Donaldson | Film | July 20, 2018 |


Cats Musical Wikimedia.jpg

I honestly considered leaving a link to this news story then just filling up the page with an endless stream of ‘hahahahahahahahahahahaaaa…’ as if this was a memo from Channing Tatum. Alas, I am a serious journalist so it is my duty to inform you that yes, as reported by Screen Daily, there will be a movie adaptation of Andrew Lloyd Webber’s Cats.

Yes, it will be directed by Tom Hooper, the Oscar winner behind The King’s Speech and the Dutch-angle-palooza that was Les Miserables.

Yes, it will star Sir Ian McKellen. And Jennifer Hudson. And James Corden. And Taylor Swift.

No, it’s not April Fool’s Day, and no, I haven’t started drinking yet.

Look, I get that there are a lot of people that LOVE Cats. In many ways, it was a groundbreaking show in musical history, especially for British musicals, as it was the first major show to heavily incorporate dance. The mere iconography of its logo, with those cat eyes and the pupils of dancers, deserves its own write-up and is partly responsible for that kind of marketing in the field. There are some decent songs in there and we’ve all been tempted to drunkenly sing along to ‘Memory’, I’m sure.

But dear lord, how do you turn this into a fucking movie?!

My big issue with Hooper’s take on Les Miserables was that he was too focused on realism to understand the epic scale of the production. Why all the close-ups? It wasn’t that impressive that everyone sang live. Did you hear Russell Crowe? The poor sod sounded like he was halfway to a hernia, and don’t get me started on Kermit the Redmayne. I had this issue with Evita too: These are stories that need to lean more into the hallucinogenic and Brechtian qualities of their source material. I can only imagine the realism version of Cats: I’m thinking a shit-ton of stray felines with Go-Pros attached to their collars? Or maybe just James Corden in a leotard shitting on the floor.

This is a terrible idea but it’ll probably make a crap ton of money. Cats has super dedicated fans. Maybe not Phantom level but they ride hard for those leotards. Then again, a dedicated fanbase couldn’t save Joel Schumacher’s Phantom of the Opera. Oh, Gerard Butler. You tried.

Honestly, I was legit afraid to type up this story lest it turned out to be a hoax. It’s just that kind of off-the-wall story, right? Well, if it is fake, at least we can get a laugh out of the image of this. We live in hope.

(Image from Wikimedia Commons)