Tom Hooper to direct movie of Andrew Lloyd Webber's 'Cats'

[terry78]

That's what I thought they were doing, but the entire body is CG but the face....nah.

 

[Pink Ranger]

This cam work as a film. If the director remembers that the cats arent meant to be freakish cat human hybrids. They are supposed to be actual cats. They're only freakish cat human hybrids on stage because there is no other way to make it work. This should have been a digital animated film like a Pixar film or a
"live action" film like Lion King with normal looking cats with maybe some slight adjustments to make their faces a bit more expressive.

I think the reason that they didn't go with animation is that the show is primarily a dance show and there's no way to make dancing cats look right if they don't have human bodies.

But they definitely could have made these actors look a lot more like cats. They didn't do anything to the faces.

This is exactly why this should be a stage show only, and not a feature film. The whole point of Cats is that they are cats portrayed by sexualized human dancers (that's actually how Andrew Lloyd Webber convinced T.S. Elliot's widow to grant him the rights to this property). On stage, because of distancing effect, the audience more easily buys into the idea of humans in shiny tights being cats. Film is generally more literal a medium, which means we're in this eternal debate about making it a cartoon, or CGI animals, or human-animal hybrids, etc. Also, the musical itself breaks the fourth wall alot, and is often a show-within-a-show situation, which depends on the performers being self aware of having an audience watching them. Some musical theatre properties don't work as feature films, and this may be one of them.

 

[The Guard]

You could make the argument that CATS doesn't really work as a stage show, either.

They're human/cat hybrids in the show because they're supposed to be human/cat hybrids in the show. That was always the visual appeal of CATS.

The characters themselves are archetypes based on very human traits that could be applied to cats.

The costumes of the dance corp are clearly meant to partially resemble human dance outfits of the era it was created, and several of the leads have costumes designed to resemble specific human outfits that make up their forms, not just the bodies of cats. Rockstar jumpsuits, a magician's outfit, a conductor's outfit, etc.

Even the dances are largely a hybrid of feline movements and more traditional dance.

 

[Schlosser85]

Surely there was a better way to bring them to the screen than just their unchanged human faces floating like bad photoshop on feline hybrid bodies. It looks like the effects department ran out of budget before it got past their necks.

 

[Hollis Mason]

An animated version of this with similar cinematography and music would be very interesting to watch.

This version, on the other hand...

 

[Gold Samurai]

Tom Hooper addresses the updated look of the cgi Cats. It wasn't a complete "Sonic" emergency overhaul

Cats Director Tom Hooper Responds To The Trailer Backlash – Exclusive

was just so fascinated because I didn’t think it was controversial at all. So it was quite entertaining. Cats was apparently the number-one trending topic in the world, for a good few hours at least. We’d only finished shooting in March, so all the visual effects [in the trailer] were at quite an early stage. Possibly there were, in the extremity in some of the responses, some clues in how to keep evolving [the production]. When you watch the finished film, you’ll see that some of the designs of the cats have moved on since then, and certainly our understanding of how to use the technology to make them work has gone up, too.”

 

[terry78]

I knew they were gonna cave in some fashion.

 

[sueb1863]

Translation: "Oops, we didn't think people were going to hate the cats as much as they did, but of course we went back and changed it."

 

[adamtoox]

Anne Hathaway as the stray cat with usa today protonmail the voice of an angel

 

[Pink Ranger]

Anne Hathaway as the stray cat with the voice of an angel

I pretty much read Grizabella as a broken-down sex worker myself, so it's fitting. You could make an entire box set of Broadway songs of dying prostitutes.

 

[-JKR-]

They should've gotten Rick Baker out of retirement! He would've had the time of his life with this project, and the results would've been SO much better. Could've used CG for the tails, ear movements and of course whatever trickery is needed for their proportions.
But yeah, most of modern Hollywood is too lazy for that.

I hope someone involved with the production will get the chance to read this and kick himself in the nuts:

THEY SHOULD'VE GOTTEN RICK BAKER OUT OF RETIREMENT!

 

[Marvolo]

Tom Hooper addresses the updated look of the cgi Cats. It wasn't a complete "Sonic" emergency overhaul

Cats Director Tom Hooper Responds To The Trailer Backlash – Exclusive

I havent seen any updated look. Is there a new trailer out?

 

[Schlosser85]

I havent seen any updated look. Is there a new trailer out?

There was a second trailer but they didn't look any different.

 

[Gold Samurai]

Judi Dench's did

2nd trailer

 

[Schlosser85]

Still creepy.

 

[TheGuy]

All they added was more hair on Dench's forehead and they called it okay. Lol.

 

[sueb1863]

The ears are much larger as well.

 

[DarthSkywalker]

The issue with the "updated" designs, is it doesn't solve most, if any of the issues. It still looks like Dench's face is floating in some weird CGI cat bad place hole.

I know why they didn't do this with outfits and make up. I just wish they had. This lacks any charm imo. The original show is odd in a way where it is clearly in on the joke. It can be fun and funny. Here though, they have taken that and turned it into something actually weird and uncomfortable imo.

 

[Schlosser85]

I didn't need to see naked Cat Man Idris Elba either. What was up with that?

 

[terry78]

Doing it with prosthetics and makeup probably would have been too redundant, which is why I thought they were going with CG to basically make them mocap anthropomorphic cats or something. They didn't even give them cat like eyes.

 

[shinlyle]

Finally saw the preview for this...kill it with fire. Yeesh...

 

[Schlosser85]

It's a feline hellscape.

 

[shinlyle]

It's a feline hellscape.

This...4 Sharknado movies...what is going on in Hollywood? Cats 2: Cat-nado?

 

[jmc]

I posted a while back the issue would be resolved if they simple added more cat-like features to the characters faces. It's the human faces that are the issue.

 

[sueb1863]

They could have fixed the human faces issues just by using makeup like the stage show does. Not as extreme but enough to suggest a feline face.

But they did nothing to the faces so as a result you have perfectly human faces on cat bodies and that just is never going to work.