If you’re one of those folks who thought that had a field day with first trailer to Cats, thinking it was creepy at best, and nightmare fuel at worst, you’re officially in the wrong place. The Tom Hooper directed film has dropped a new trailer for audiences to behold, and if anything, it doubles down on that crazy energy that we saw in the first, more restrained look at T.S. Eliot’s famed feline frolic come to life.
So prepare yourself to read and write more wild comments about this film’s CGI creatures, but not before you dive head first into the world of Cats yet again, with the trailer below:
This Cats trailer has it all: Idris Elba’s Macavity showing off more of his sneaky ambitions, Judi Dench playing a god-like elder cat who will grant a lucky soul a new life, and Taylor Swift’s Bombalurina shaking it off in true Swiftian fashion. If you watched that last trailer and thought, “Geez, Tom Hooper, you’re holding back aren’t you?”, then James Corden hissing at another cat and grooming himself only shows that the challenge you dropped has been accepted.
But in the middle of the CGI work that Cats has shown off yet again, it all feels a little more… routine. True, nothing’s changed, and it’s still kind of frightening to see this world of singing and dancing cats in Cats, but it’s starting to feel more normal than outlandish.
This isn’t another Sonic The Hedgehog where the internet said something, and then the folks behind the film tried to strike a compromise in the edit. Cats is here to do only one thing: be the best Cats movie it can be. That includes crafting a new song with Taylor Swift and Andrew Lloyd Webber joining quills to knock that tune right out. In that respect, you kind of have to respect this movie, and the people behind it, for not wavering from such a vision. It might be a fever dream, but it’s their fever dream; and they aren’t letting it go.
It’s a dream that looks to be opening to the tune of $10 - $20 million at the box office its opening weekend, though monetary success is probably the least of the concerns to the powers that be behind Cats’ finished product. If anything, this film is more than likely being groomed for an awards season pedigree, and the claws will come out when it comes time to be considered for that trophy.
Above all else, Cats is proof that no matter how crazy, heightened, or downright bizarre the vision is, there’s always a market that’ll buy it. And there’s no such thing as bad buzz on the internet, because at least there’s only one crazy cat movie that folks are talking about at this moment. Sorry Nine Lives, you just got kicked out of the litter box.
Cats curls up into theaters, and knocks the audience’s drinks from their holders, on December 20th. It should be safe to open a movie on that day, right?
