It truly does speak to what an absolute mindf*ck that 2020 has been so far that 'Cats' and the fun everyone had with it feels like a long, distant memory.
That was just over eight months ago. Eight months ago, people.
Anyway, 'Cats' has been consigned to the litter bin of movie history and rightfully so, though it seems one person is still sour of it - Andrew Lloyd Webber, the original stage musical's writer.
In an interview with the Sunday Times, Lloyd-Webber was questioned about the adaptation of 'Cats' and made his feelings perfectly clear on the subject. "The whole thing was ridiculous," he said. "The problem with the film was that Tom Hooper decided, as he had with 'Les Mis', that he didn’t want anybody involved in it who was involved in the original show."
It wasn't just Tom Hooper who got the sharp end of the stick, either. James Corden's performance as Bustopher Jones came in for derision by Lloyd-Webber, who described his performance as "absolutely un-Eliot", in reference TS Eliot, the writer upon which 'Cats' was inspired from his poetry collection, 'Old Possum’s Book of Practical Cats'.
Of course, Lloyd-Webber got the last laugh on this. The movie barely made any money from its near $100 million budget, the movie adaptation was universally panned and became a joke punchline, yet 'Cats' is - or at least was before the pandemic began - still playing on Broadway and the West End, and still revered as a groundbreaking musical.
Looks like Andrew Lloyd-Webber is still, despite 'Cats' being a furball, the cat (GROAN) that got the cream (GROAN).
