In case you haven't seen it yet, the trailer for Cats — yes, that's the movie based on the hit Broadway musical — just dropped this afternoon.
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It's a VERY star-studded film, filled with the likes of Taylor Swift, Idris Elba, Jennifer Hudson, Dame Judi Dench, Jason Derulo, James Corden, and more.
Now, the movie itself doesn't premiere until December. So nobody REALLY knows how it's gonna be yet.
But the trailer is the first glimpse we've gotten at what the cats in Cats will look like. And after a few (thousand) screenings of it, I just...need a minute to process.
To be fair, this was always going to be a challenge in adapting Cats for film — every single character is literally a stray cat. How the heck do you translate that to screen?
You could embrace the show's Broadway roots, and keep those tight-fitting, fuzzy dance costumes that have become famous in their own right.
Or you could go the route of the recent Lion King remake, and use CGI to create photorealistic animals.
But the Cats movie has decided to do...neither of those things? Or maybe both of them??? I don't really know! I'm still working through this, honestly. Let's investigate. Here's what Judi Dench looks like as a cat:
And here's Taylor Swift.
And here's Jennifer Hudson.
Basically, the cats are one part live-action person, one part CGI cat, and one part something you might see after breaking into Area 51.
The cats in Cats have human mouths and teeth.
But they have VERY realistic cat ears.
The cats have human eyes.
But they are indeed the size of cats, as evidenced by this shot of them jumping on a bed.
The cats walk upright on two legs, like people.
But they wear collars, and no clothing, like cats.
Their bodies are indisputably human bodies, but they are covered head to toe in fur.
And when they turn around, they have tails, which seem to protrude from their otherwise very human butts.
Basically, it's just a lot to process!
Naturally, people online have some questions about all this.
somehow the people in Cats look more nude than if they were actually nude, and it's weird as hell.
But we've got months to wait until we can actually judge for ourselves. In the meantime, I will leave you with Sir Ian McKellen as a cat-human hybrid. Goodbye!
