A new "Cats" trailer to terrify and amuse you!

Kitty Glitter, indeed.

They should have released it as a scary movie for Halloween. It would sell like hot-cakes.

To quote a really great musical.... "Well, I thought this was going to help. But I guess it's not."

They spent 300 million on THAT? This has the potential to be the biggest flop of all time if the budget reporting is accurate.

The perspective is all off too, they are too small for the bed and the stairs.

Based on that trailer, they apparently decided that a movie would actually need some sort of plot, rather than simply a collection of songs, choreography, and staging.

I suppose that's an improvement, but would then mean that a revival of Cats on stage based on the movie would be imminent.

Anyone else kinda disappointed the female cats don't have six titties?

I don't think I'll pay to see this sentimentalised 'collection of songs' but I appreciate Tom Hooper's early TV work which showed good taste and sensible direction.

Is it just me, or is Rebel Wilson's shtick of being the clumsy, loud big girl way past its expiration date?

^^ It's not just you.

I start wheezing just looking at that.

Honestly, that first trailer had enough gravitas and bizarre imagery to intrigue me, but the obnoxious way in which this trailer is cut is really off putting. I actually have no problem with the visuals, and you can see the improvement in effects compared to the first trailer, but the tone of the film looks super cloying.

300 million is a lot to drop on this film. Does Tom Hooper really have that much clout?

This is *so* going to be a Cult Classic.

Is it possible that this film will utterly destroy Judi Dench’s career at a time when she does have enough life let to revive it and soil everything she has done?

This looks every bit as good as ALW's score deserves.

I love it! Can’t wait!!

Charlie's Angels will look like a smash hit compared to this bomb. At least it won't lose nearly as much money.

[quote]you can see the improvement in effects compared to the first trailer,

Where?

Well maybe Elizabeth Banks can breathe a little easier.

r18, you must be thinking of the Sonic the Hedgehog movie.

[quote]This is *so* going to be a Cult Classic.

Filmmakers don't make cult classics, audiences do.

Did Taylor's cat titties jiggle a little?

This is why I’m a dog person. Pauline sends her regards. x

Lol R20.

David Lynch and James Cronenberg are kicking themselves right now, they tried and tried, but neither could EVER put images this disturbing on film!

I have so got to see this, but not on the big screen. That would be terrifying.

Will this become a minor hit because of how terrifying it looks?

So for those of you who have seen the musical, what exactly is the plot?

I've heard there isn't really one, and I can see how this would not make a good play to adapt.

Why do they have to redo all the classics in CGI?

It's basically a competition to figure out which cat goes to kitty heaven. Did I get it wrong? I was really high when I saw it.

Meh. The first trailer at least had Memory and a real, visual WTF factor. This was just jumbled scenes with generic filler music.

[quote]So for those of you who have seen the musical, what exactly is the plot?

It based on T.S. Eliot's Old Possum's Book of Practical Cats a book of poems.

The lesbians are going to flock to it en masse.

Oh please, you know the gays will too. Homosexuals, Taylor Swift fans, and rubberneckers will get this past $100M easy.

I absolutely love it. I’ll go see it for four reasons.

First, the horrific CGI has the visual appeal of witnessing a live car crash. It’s awful, but you just can’t look away.

Second, to promote the future Movie-izing of musicals. I’d love to see Falsettos in theatres some day instead of another Marvel sequel.

Third, the choreography looks beautiful so far, and a lot of the actors are trained dancers, which is interesting and will benefit them in the long run.

Fourth, the ugly characters overshadow it, but the cinematography looks gorgeous.

Bad CGI isn’t enough to discourage me from seeing a film anymore, not now that 80% of films that come out are made of computer effects.

The CGI looks a tad better in the second trailer. Funny how the first one had the caterwauling of “Memory” and seemed more mystical. The second trailer has more Idris, and fewer close ups, and more energetic. But, like another poster pointed out, the proportions are terrible. Seen in 3D, probably nauseating.

Who’s the audience for this? Kids, no. Theater enthusiasts? They’ll dislike the CGI. Dating couples will go see a romcom.

I’ll wait till it’s on streaming and I’ve been drinking.

Please. Make it stop. 🤮

Did they offer Betty Buckley a cameo?

OK let me get this straight: the musical is 99% sung yet this trailer didn't have one note.

R27 its basically a series of vignettes showcasing each cat, but the through line is how the leader cat is going to rise to heavyside lair (cat heaven) and in the end he selects Grizabella (who sings Memory) and is a cat that has seen better days, and that is that.

[quote] Oh please, you know the gays will too.

Maybe YOU will.

I wouldn't be caught dead.

[quote] So for those of you who have seen the musical, what exactly is the plot?

Well, I'll tell you what happens. There's a bunch of cats, and one of them is real sick and tired. So the other cats put on a show to cheer her up. Then they put her on a tire and shoot her through the roof.

R41 So you are saying that tire thing was a catapult?

Cats is about a murderous street cat cult. That’s all you need to know.

No, it's more like a cross between a missile and a hovercraft.

I’ll be sad if they don’t include the [italic] Growltiger’s Last Stand [/italic] segment. It was my favorite part of the show. (the version with the Growltiger/Griddlebone aria.)

James ... Cronenberg?

Here is the bigger question: WHY does James Corden keep getting cast in movies, especially musical adaptations.

The only weirder thing is that he keeps accepting roles in these movies in spite of his late night gig.

R45: agreed. The ‘Oriental’ sounding aria is on par with that from Puccini’s Madame Butterfly.

^ Fast Forward to 5: 04 for that particular bit.

LOL, R41!

Ohmygawd! It looks completely insane and nightmare inducing! Noooooo!

They softened the edges of the faces, turned the catlike noses into human noses. It looks like they listened to the audience's feedback from the first trailer, and well, it got worse.

Best YouTube comment on this so far:

[quote]Idris Elba looks naked but not in good way.

HUGE improvement in the faces' CGI (shape is less triangular and noses look normal). In the earlier trailer, Jennifer Hudson and Judi Dench looked downright scary.

Also, according to the choice of proportions, these cats are the size of mice.

Taylor is quite the, um, actress.

They’ve managed to make cats look repulsive.

[quote]Here is the bigger question: WHY does James Corden keep getting cast in movies, especially musical adaptations.

Because many people who aren't prissy fat-phobic queens like him. I thought he was wonderful in "Into The Woods".

[quote]Because many people who aren't prissy fat-phobic queens like him. I thought he was wonderful in "Into The Woods".

Interesting that you went directly to fat - your insecurities are showing.

I'm glad you found him wonderful in Into the Woods. I did not. I don't enjoy his singing voice and find his phrasing to be grating.

I guess he's lucky that he appeals to people like you and will always find an audience of people with your sensibilities.

Jellicle this and Jellicle that

Jellicle jellicle jelli-cle

jellicle that.

R58, how patronizing and condescending! You think you're better than R57? You're not - you're just an overcompensating prick who obviously wants his "right" to act like he's so much more than other people.

[quote][R58], how patronizing and condescending! You think you're better than [R57]? You're not - you're just an overcompensating prick who obviously wants his "right" to act like he's so much more than other people.

LOL - You think r58's comment "Because many people who aren't prissy fat-phobic queens like him" is fine, but somehow MINE is patronizing and condescending. Sure, that makes perfect logical sense. I explained why I don't like Corden, but apparently that's being patronizing and condescending, even though r58 went from 0-100mph in unhinged, baseless crazy. No one made a reference to Corden being fat, yet somehow I'm a "prissy fat-phobic queen." It couldn't possibly be any other reason why someone wouldn't like him.

You, of course, are entitled to your own opinion on the matter. However, it seems to me that calling me "an overcompensating pricks who..." is a bit excessive and reflects a disproportionate response to a minor, for DL, disagreement.

Perhaps you should consider why you're so outraged on little to no provocation.

[quote] Because many people who aren't prissy fat-phobic queens like him. I thought he was wonderful in "Into The Woods"... Interesting that you went directly to fat - your insecurities are showing. I'm glad you found him wonderful in Into the Woods. I did not. I don't enjoy his singing voice and find his phrasing to be grating. I guess he's lucky that he appeals to people like you and will always find an audience of people with your sensibilities.

Are you new here, there was an entire thread where he was attacked because he was fat. It has nothing to do with me. Most overweight people here are attacked for it. Not a Sondheimite, so you have no power over me, Dear.

Eh, Cordon is okay as an actor, but only in small doses. He shouldn't be appearing in every damn film that gets made.

I live with many cats. They would find this hideous and the idea that humans would attempt to emulate them despicable—their mastery of their own form, their balance, their native incandescent brightness. OK theater bitches, jump!

CatTits

....

I don’t give a rat’s ass what Corden looks like. I think picking on him for his weight is stupid, why settle for that when there’s so many more inane things to pick on him for? He’s a talentless, shrill, aggravating gay-baiting hack. He wandered into his career by chance because he knows the right people. He got the role in Into The Woods because he knew the right people. He got his show because he knew the right people. And now he’s in Cats because he knows the right people. He’s a narcissistic egomaniacal unfunny prick who fancies himself a thespian despite having no talent and barely having acted outside of his run in The History Boys and the film version of Into The Woods. He’s a revolting skidmark on modern pop culture. I don’t hate him because he’s fat, he’s fat because I hate him.

R67 Please tell us how you really feel?

[quote]Are you new here, there was an entire thread where he was attacked because he was fat. It has nothing to do with me. Most overweight people here are attacked for it. Not a Sondheimite, so you have no power over me, Dear.

You seem overly fixated on the idea of other people controlling you or having power over you.

Coupled with your insecurity about being fat, it makes me wonder who hurt you and why gaining weight was your method of coping.

As for being or not being a "Sonheimite," I don't really know how that's germaine to, well, anything.

Liking or disliking Corden is not a referendum on fat people or you. Why you've chosen to stan him and so closely identify with him is more a mystery than why he continues to be cast.

Sure are a lot of pusshy frauen here, amid the ushzual DL-in-decline hisshhhhers.

Perfect audienshz for CATSHZ!

Breathe everyone...Cats’ Will Compete for Golden Globes After All

Who at Universal decided to open this the same day as the last Star Wars movie? Yikes.

Why make them creepy human cat hybrid mutants? Why not have them be completely cats?

It makes me think of John Candy in Spaceballs.

R67, you are an ignorant ass. You left out his Tony Award, his BAFTA Award. You left out his other television series on the BBC. You left out the National Theater, the West End and his Broadway run in "One Man, Two Guvnors," for which he won the Tony for Best Actor in a Play.

I also find Corden annoying, but his career is not the paltry thing you presented in your angry screed. Hate him if you wish, but be fair about it.

R74 you forgot his 8 Emmy Awards for Outstanding Variety Talk Series: The Late Late Show with James Corden, Carpool Karaoke and The Tony Awards. Boy he sure seems to know a lot of the right people!

[quote]It makes me think of John Candy in Spaceballs.

I love you people.

R45 that's my favorite part, too, but it's considered too racist nowadays. Sigh.

R53 this was my favorite:

[[quote]Wth did you all do to my baby Idris Elba? The CGI horror of it all! Idris looks as if he's wearing the worst velvet body suit ever. Lol

And runner-up:

[quote]Is this an snl skit? Like this looks to bad to be true? Everything from the premise, to the costumes, to the big name actors is perfectly, hilariously, horrible . How did this happen?

I am as gay as gay can be. I love show tunes. I love musicals. I replicated Norma Desmond's With One Look costume for Halloween once. Effectively.

Nothing will move me to see this movie.

The reviews are in!

Ditto, R79.

And we've got to be the target demographic for this mess, us and our elderly mothers.

I take back every bad thing I ever said about [italic]The Movie: A Chorus Line[/italic].

Did they make Old Deuteronomy female because a male leader would symbolize the Patriarchy or something? I'm trying to understand that particular casting.

No one has mentioned what a fucking fascist piece of shit T.S. Eliot was or what a fucking hacky schlockmeister Andrew Lloyd Webber is?

[italic]The Aristocats[/italic] had catchier songs. Hell, even the musical numbers on [italic]Garfield and Friends[/italic] were better than this wretched mess.

I'm very much enjoying the idea of Idris Elba in a velvet bodysuit.

R83, maybe because Judi Dench was the first choice for Grizabella for the original London cast, until she was injured. So they made her Old Deuteronomy instead, and also be politically correct at the same time. Everything about this production seems like a bad choice, other than Idris in a cat suit.

It still looks better than Floppy Poopy Turds. At least that awful woman who ruined [italic]Kramer vs. Kramer[/italic] with her overindulgent underacting won't be in this mess.

[quote]Did they offer Betty Buckley a cameo?

Should have just cast her as Grizabella. It is CGI and she can still sing that song with far more emotion than Hudson.

Plus imagine all the wonderfully cunty antics we would hear about behind the scenes.

Totally missed opportunity.

They really improved the CGI

This is the same studio that turned Mike Myers into [italic]The Cat in the Hat[/italic] while casting Alec "Toxic Little Queen" Baldwin and Professional Uncle Tom Sean Hayes to rub about a pound of salt into the wound.

Too bad they cut the sequence wth the squalling cat. You'd have finally won something.

May you BOTH get Razzies for your substance-free caterwauling.

In my wildest dreams I could not imagine a movie where James Corden plays a cat. Is the cat constantly licking and scratching it's furry balls? Then it would be realistic. Sounds like a dumpster fire on wheels.

I don't think it could even be worse than it looks if Disney got ahold of the rights, and after the damage they did to musicals they didn't write, that's saying something.

Let the memory live again!

The "humor" is lowest common denominator stuff that appears to be aimed at small children, but I don't think small children are going to be interested in a bunch of singing and dancing sexy cats with human faces and tits. I think they will be as terrified as the rest of us. Apart from the furries and those who love a trainwreck, it's hard to imagine who will want to see this film.

I could maybe see going to a "Rocky Horror" type midnight showing somewhere, with people throwing cat litter at the screen. That could be fun.

The new Taylor Swift song from Cats didn't even chart on the Hot 100, which isn't a good sign for the movie.

They look like evil sea monkeys.

Why is Judy Drench the only geriatric actress who works in Hollywood? I mean she missing teeth, for fuck's sake!!!

[quote]I don't think it could even be worse than it looks if Disney got ahold of the rights, and after the damage they did to musicals they didn't write, that's saying something.

What does this mean?

It means the only way that this piece of shit could stink any worse than you know it’s going to is if Rob Marshall directed it.

Are there still parts for us?

They really should have made this an animated film.

Both my sister and mom (the former has terrible taste in art/cinema, the latter usually is more adept) both claimed they couldn't wait to see Cats when we got together on Thanksgiving.

So, there's that.

Meanwhile, Frozen 2 has earned $738 million worldwide in just two weeks. It's stealing all of Cats thunder.

Why is there so much dialogue?

[quote] I take back every bad thing I ever said about The Movie: A Chorus Line.

I don’t. This may suck worse than the Chorus Line movie, but Cats always sucked. Making a good movie out of Cats was not possible. This crap fest looks deliciously bad.

But Chorus Line is a great musical on stage, and the film version is horrific. There is no greater disparity in the quality of the stage and film versions than with ACL. (Well, maybe A Little Night Music).

I wonder what this movie (especially if it bombs) will do to future productions of SIX DEGREES OF SEPARATION? It'll be hard to take the play seriously, no?

A Chorus Line is set entirely on a stage, so it was too stage bound to ever succeed as a film.

Sondheim was against Streisand's Gypsy for the very same reason. He said the show only works in a live theater.

[quote}This may suck worse than the Chorus Line movie, but Cats always sucked

It sucked to YOU. There are millions of people that love it. It played over twenty years on Broadway and London. Shows that suck don;t break records. It's still playing all over the world. The curiosity factor, "Oh Lets see what Cats is all about" ran out a long time ago. People know what it is and they go because they like it, and the world still turns.

[quote] They really should have made this an animated film.

They were going to in the 1990s but then they scrapped it and made the taped stage production instead.

I wonder whether the movie [italic]Cats Don’t Dance[/italic], which is really good and worth seeking out, had anything to do with that.

OMG

Judi, why?

Universal & Amblin were going to make it as an animated film but then Amblimation got shuttered when Spielberg went to start his own animation studio Dreamworks which of course is now owned by Universal.

Concept art from that film

More

I preferred the earlier movie version.

So are all these trailers like throwing spaghetti to the wall and hoping something sticks that they will then some how unlock some new audience for this disaster that didn't see the earlier ones?

Film is a different medium!

Yeah, it should've been animated. What works on stage (i.e., adult dancers in leotards) doesn't always work on film where it is harder to suspend disbelief. I think that's why the cat humanoids look off/creepy with the people faces/movements and within the oversized human setting.

[quote]adult dancers in leotards

Was one of the only good things about the movie of [italic]A Chorus Line[/italic].

A heckin one-star review from the Guardian--in verse.

[quote]No one has mentioned what a fucking fascist piece of shit T.S. Eliot was

I thought that was Ezra Pound?

Cats is not fur everyone.

The reviewer from Io9 says, “ But it’s not just the way the real and the digital combat each other in the same scenes (and usually in the same body), it’s the way the shit’s just not finished.

I witnessed an entire man, knit cap and coat, just standing in a scene among a gathering of cats. I saw a terrifying gray statue looming over a character, only for it to blink and realize it’s a woman who is a cat, but they colored her and then forgot to add fur. In one scene, nearly all of Judi Dench’s hand is a fluffy blond like her the coat of her cat character, Deuteronomy. In another, it’s just her regular hand, replete with what appears to be a wedding ring. Most cats have human feet, but some cats wear shoes.”

So it’s not only a train wreck, but an unfinished one. I feel sorry for the lowly special effects artists who worked around the clock to try and salvage this thing.

Cats is a terrorist organization!

[quote] Cats is a terrorist organization!

It's an acronym:

CALCULATEDLY

ATTACKING

THEATRICAL

SENSIBILITIES

I hate James Corden so much. And this makes me hate him more.

Whenever I see something about CATS, I am fondly reminded of Maxwell Sheffield on THE NANNY:

Fran (to an aspiring playwright): What are you listening to him for? He passed on "Cats".

Maxwell: It was singing pussycat people in a giant garbage can! What would you have done?

Word, Max. (but it made for a great running joke)

R128 I hate the UK so much! I used to be an Anglophile in my late teens, but I've realized they're the snobbiest people on earth, especially when it comes to Americans. Whereas Americans are generally accepting/welcoming of Brits, they tend to have a love/hate relationship with us that I don't understand. They love and consume American pop culture, but at the same time they resent it. Which makes them resent Americans. Weird.

Michael Philips, movie critic for The Chicago Tribune, gave it zero stars. Makes me want to see how really awful it is.

r130 They’re like that towards Europeans as well. Only Brits (and some Americans) are allowed to make great art or popular culture, even so-called cosmopolitans like the Guardian writers have that attitude.

This is yet more cinematic payback for not giving Audrey Hepburn the Oscar she deserved for [italic]My Fair Lady[/italic] and for giving Aileen Quinn a thoroughly undeserved Razzie for [italic]Annie[/italic].

R130: They resent us because they used to own us yet needed us to save them from Hitler. I went to the UK twice in the 1990s and I was shocked to see vilely unfunny American garbage like [italic]F(r)iends[/italic] treated as anything other than toxic waste. It made me ashamed to be an American. Then I saw that UK TV had just as many bad shows as the US yet we somehow only mainly got the good ones.

It has car crash appeal.

Perhaps curiosity won't kill the Cats, but save it?

I heard that they had to cut the scene where James Corden has trouble with a large yarn ball.

R136 Maybe he can play with his little digital cat balls instead?

Uh, nothing is anatomically correct in this movie, R137. The cats have no visible genitals.

Boobies!

I thought the girl ones had little teats?

[quote]I thought the girl ones had little teats?

Only two each, though.

The entire show always was nonsense. As a British critic observed, if "Cats" was really going to invoke cats, the show should have been a bunch of actors lying around the stage, yawning and licking their own assholes. The high point of the show would have been when one of the cats went to the door of the theater, meowed to be let out, stood there with the door open until all the heat was sucked out of the building, then decided he didn't want to go out anyway.

My real-life cat was sitting on my lap getting warm, but I was laughing so hard at this thread she got mad and went off in a huff.

Memories always makes me cry. I used to sing it to my cat who died of cancer.

I know. Mary

The song is called "Memory."