One of the biggest movie flops in history was the theatrical version of the Broadway play, Cats. Cats was a big hit on the stage, running for eighteen years. However, the movie version barely lasted a weekend on the screen back in December of 2019.
Image via Variety
The live-action version, which starred a lot of famous celebrities such as Jennifer Hudson, Taylor Swift, Judy Dench, and James Corden, was a major disappointment. All of the stars in the cast couldn’t amount to enough of a distraction to the strange elements of it all. The original composer of the broadway musical, Andrew Lloyd Webber, is not pleased with the film. According to Webber, the film is creepy and weird. Webber also said the director, Tom Hooper didn’t want anyone from the original production on board, which could be another reason why movie did so poorly. Maybe if they had taken some pointers from the people that created the show, the movie could have done a lot better, or maybe just been a little less weird.
James Corden, one of the stars of the film, hasn’t even watched it. However, he has stated in an interview that he heard the film was terrible. It’s likely he thought it was going to be a smash hit like the play, after all, most of the world did. Universal Pictures lost about $113 million dollars on the film, despite the success of other Broadway plays at the box office, such as Les Misérables back in 2012, which was also directed by Hooper.
While Cats made for a wonderful stage production, it just wasn’t meant to be a live-action movie.
Featured Image via Vulture