Oscar®-winning director Tom Hooper (The King’s Speech, Les Misérables, The Danish Girl) transforms Andrew Lloyd Webber’s record-shattering stage musical Cats into a breakthrough cinematic event — a spectacular, fun, funny, moving, family-friendly film for all generations.
In Philippine cinemas January 8, Cats stars James Corden as Bustopher Jones, Judi Dench as Old Deuteronomy, Jason Derulo as Rum Tum Tugger, Idris Elba as Macavity, Jennifer Hudson as Grizabella, Ian McKellen as Gus The Theatre Cat, Taylor Swift as Bombalurina, Rebel Wilson as Jennyanydots and introduces Royal Ballet principal dancer Francesca Hayward in her feature film debut as Victoria.
Featuring Lloyd Webber’s iconic music and a world-class cast of dancers under the guidance of Tony-winning choreographer Andy Blankenbuehler (Hamilton, In the Heights), the film reimagines the musical for a new generation with spectacular production design, state-of-the-art technology, and dance styles ranging from classical ballet to contemporary, hip-hop to jazz, street dance to tap.
One of the longest-running shows in West End and Broadway history, the stage musical “Cats” received its world premiere at the New London Theatre in 1981, where it played for 21 years and earned the Olivier and Evening Standard Awards for Best Musical. In 1983, the Broadway production became the recipient of seven Tony Awards, including Best Musical, and ran for an extraordinary 18 years. Since opening in London in 1981, “Cats” has continuously appeared on stage around the globe, to date having played to 81 million people in more than 50 countries and in 19 languages. It is one of the most successful musicals of all time.
As a boy, Hooper had seen Andrew Lloyd Webber’s “Cats” on the stage and had been wonderstruck by it. “I first saw Cats when I was 10 years old, and I have such a vivid memory of what an extraordinary experience it was,” Hooper says. “I felt I was being initiated into the secret world of cats. It felt like I was being given this privileged access to this other way of looking at the world.”
Producer Eric Fellner understood why Hooper was the ideal filmmaker to adapt it for the screen. “Tom Hooper can create narrative and emotion out of stories that often don’t have obvious narrative or emotion,” Fellner says. “That’s the kind of director that you want for a project like this. He is able to bring out the story and emotion, while combining the musical elements beautifully.”
Cats is distributed in the Philippines by United International Pictures through Columbia Pictures.