'Cats' Trailer: Stop What You're Doing And Watch These Digitally Enhanced Cat People

Jennifer Hudson, Taylor Swift, James Corden, Rebel Wilson, Jason Derulo, Idris Elba, Ray Winstone, Ian McKellen, and Judi Dench are all playing cats in Cats, the movie adaptation of the Broadway sensation Cats, which is about cats. While the stage production employs furry costumes for its feline characters, this new film from Tom Hooper uses digital enhancements to turn its actors into kitties. You can decide for yourself if this is a good or bad idea by watching the first Cats trailer below.

When it was announced that a Cats movie was coming, I think we all just collectively assumed the actors would be donning cat costumes and make-up and prancing about, just like the long-running Broadway production. But no! Director Tom Hooper (Les Miserables, The King's Speech) had another idea up his sleeve. Instead, the star-studded cast put on some costumes and Hopper's team went back and digitally enhanced their skin to make them look like cat people.

We first got word of this during the Cats presentation at CinemaCon, and the reaction was strong, to say the least. While the majority of the Internet didn't get to see the footage, the news itself that Hooper and company were doing digitally-enhanced cats was enough to go viral. Now, we can all see for ourselves what the end result is. Does it work? Is it okay? Or are will audiences spend the entire movie distracted at Taylor Swift with CGI cat ears? We shall see. At the very least, Cats looks like it's shaping up to be the type of movie everyone has to see for themselves, either to applaud the choices, or to smirk at the weirdness of it all.

Cats claws its way into theaters December 20, 2019.

Universal Pictures and Working Title's Cats is a most-unexpected film adaptation of Andrew Lloyd Webber's beloved smash musical "Cats" and the poems from "Old Possum's Book of Practical Cats," by T.S. Eliot. Oscar®-winning director Tom Hooper (The King's Speech, Les Misérables, The Danish Girl) brings astonishing new technology to transform his cast members.

One of the longest-running shows in West End and Broadway history, "Cats" received its world premiere at the New London Theatre in 1981—where it played for 21 record-breaking years and almost 9,000 performances. The groundbreaking production based on T.S. Eliot's "Old Possum's Book of Practical Cats" was the winner of 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.