Tom Hooper Directing "Cats" Movie — Page 3

I loved it on stage, but to me it's a theatre piece the way "A Chorus Line" is a theatre piece. Same plot, pretty much. Just change cats for dancers.

wonderfulwizard11 said: "IPlus, Hooper did a terrible job with Les Mis- maybe a really inventive, visual director could do something with this, but he's the blandest, worst choice for the material. "

Yeah, I don't get it either. Yes, "The King's Speech" was great, but in that case Hooper's odd framing style worked in the context of the story, showing how King George's stutter put him off-kilter with rest the rest of the world.

In 'Les Miz', the weird framing setups made no sense at all. Why put Eponine in one tiny corner of the screen and have the rest just be a blank wall? Why show Marius singing at a 45-degree angle? It was off-putting and bizarre.

best12bars said: "I loved it on stage, but to me it's a theatre piece the way "A Chorus Line" is a theatre piece. Same plot, pretty much. Just change cats for dancers.



"



Exactly what I also thought! Just like in A CHORUS LINE, where dancers with varied backstories come together for an audition, CATS draws felines of different characters and backgrounds who come together for a reunion. Except CATS was based on an English classic book by T.S.Eliot, where he vests into each creature the different characteristics found in humans. Actually a very sophisticated mirror of today's society!

To me one of the biggest problems is that the show really doesn't have a plot, it's just a series of very loosely connected songs punctuated with long dance intervals. There isn't much there to hang a movie on. It's a fun show to watch for the dancing and the singing but the story itself isn't exactly cinematic. Many of the songs are pretty random and just sort of pop up and happen for no apparent reason. That's enjoyable on a live stage where it doesn't matter if things don't always make sense because you're there to watch the dancing and listen to the music, but in a movie it all has to come together in a clear narrative flow.

I'm betting this never gets beyond the talking stage.

The only people who will go and see this are some tragic old show queens.. And NO ONE ELSE! What a stupid idea for a movie.

So, how's the Wicked movie coming?

http://www.playbill.com/article/cats-movie-slated-to-begin-filming-in-november

I think they've signed Anne Hathaway for Grizzabella and Rihanna as Bombalurina according to circulating rumours.



Worth noting Cats was first announced in May 2016 and Wicked announced its release date in June 2016, I still think there will be plenty of time for both to be on target. I think Cats will maybe get released around September or October. This one just doesn't have the appeal or hype of a big Christmas blockbuster like Les Miserables or Greatest Showman. It's well known but I feel like it won't be as accessible to a wider commercial audience in the way a musical like Wicked does.

I expect this to be more like Into the Woods and Sweeney Todd over Mamma Mia and Les Miserables.

Updated On: 6/21/18 at 07:58 PM

It's going to look weird on screen either way, cgi cats dancing or people dressed as Cats combined with the lack of a plot is going to make this film a hard sell. I feel like Cats doesn't lend itself well to the film medium it's going to be difficult to transfer it to screen.

Apologizing for singing by crying your way through a song is not gonna work in a CGI Cats movie, Tom!
I had hoped you learned from your previous disaster.

Any composer who lets this barbarian butcher the material after what happened must be senile. Andrew?

But seriously, are theatre producers and composers really THAT clueless about the fact that apologizing for the material will never work? Are they that clueless and intimidated by the film world in general? Are they scared to point out that the pacing of certain scenes is very off in the les Mis film? I truly hope one day they will demand quality of real acting through real singing. Nobody ran out of the cinema when Julie Andrews or Lea Salonga sang in movies you know, audience members won't have mental breakdowns when movies don't apoligize for singing and yet bleat through songs. People long for sincerity. Les mis is not sincere. They apologize for singing so why are they singing? It harms the acting.

Updated On: 6/21/18 at 08:37 PM

I’m fine with this being green lit, but they BETTER film the Groltiger scene. I was so mad it wasn’t included in the earlier film. John Mills could not play Growltiger but they could have kept him as Gus and had a younger actor play GT. It’ll probably be cut because of the racist words used.

Just read the article here - this sounds like more press agent BS to me, so let's just see if it's filming in November because I find that as doubtful as I found it back in 2016 when they first started this.

Updated On: 6/22/18 at 01:29 AM