When it comes to the way fans feel about the Cats reboot, it’s clear no frisky feline has anyone’s tongue.
Following a brief tease at CinemaCon back in April, the first full-length trailer for the musical debuted on Thursday night (July 18), revealing the human-cat hybrid forms represented by names like Taylor Swift, Idris Elba, Judi Dench, James Corden, Jason Derulo, and Jennifer Hudson.
At first glance, it looks like a fairly faithful representation of the original legendary Broadway hit, complete with familiar songs and characters, perhaps with additional story bits sprinkled in for good measure. But despite all this, it certainly didn’t appear to get fans purring with delight – far from it, in fact, for the most part.
So what did fans think of the lengthy clip teasing the upcoming film? If we’re being honest, most reactions weren’t exactly pretty.
All across social media, criticism for the footage ranged from the decision to make the cats appear more humanoid than their furry counterparts from the original show, their apparently unsettling place in the “uncanny valley,” and how overtly “horrifying” the actors done up as their feline selves actually were. There were a myriad of complaints tearing across Twitter following the trailer’s debut, and some of them were kind of hilarious.
But for every negative comment, it appeared there were still hopeful Cats fans out there looking forward to seeing the film adaptation, even if their reactions were admittedly low in number. Many of them followed a similar structure: they didn’t care what anyone thought about them, they were excited to see the movie. And that’s a good attitude to have. People can absolutely enjoy things, after all. It just seems like in this case those who aren’t exactly enamored with the Jellicle cats’ new look may be in the vocal majority.
Some people just couldn’t get over Taylor Swift in her new furry form.
How will audiences ultimately feel about Cats when it begins prowling around theaters later this year? We’ll have to wait and see when it debuts on December 20, 2019, just in time for the holidays.
