Infamously-Bad Cats Movie Starring Taylor Swift and Ian McKellen Made Composer Andrew Lloyd Webber Get a Dog

The movie mentation of Cats was truthful atrocious that composer Andrew Lloyd Webber got a dog.

Speaking to CBS Sunday Morning, the philharmonic maestro said that star-studded movie mentation of Cats, his fashionable theatre show, was "appalling" for a database of reasons helium did not person capable clip to explain.

Webber, whose different philharmonic hits see Jesus Christ Superstar, Phantom of the Opera and Evita, is wide seen arsenic the astir palmy theatrical composer of each time, with dozens of Tony Awards and Grammy Awards to his name, arsenic good arsenic a peerage successful the U.K., wherever helium is simply a Lord. When it comes to the large surface adaptation of Cats, however, Webber is blessed to region himself from the project.

"After the appalling Cats movie, I went retired and bought myself a small Havanese puppy," Webber said, explaining that the pooch is present his "therapy canine connected planes."

"I conscionable constitute a enactment to the hose saying, you know, 'reason for canine connected plane' and I put: 'Cats movie.' And they ever travel backmost saying, 'No doctor's certificate required.'"

When asked for much item connected what astir the Cats movie Webber recovered truthful offensive, the composer replied: "Well, is this a very, precise agelong interrogation we're doing? Because it could beryllium a very, precise agelong list."

Released successful 2019, the Cats movie featured an awesome formed that included Idris Elba, Jennifer Hudson, Ian McKellen, Taylor Swift, Rebel Wilson, James Corden and Judi Dench. But contempt the caliber of acting endowment progressive — and Webber's songs — the movie was wide panned for its genuinely unusual CGI effects utilized to make its fake felines.

@cbssundaymorning Andrew Lloyd Webber does not clasp backmost however helium feels astir the 2019 "Cats" movie, joking that it was truthful traumatic helium bought himself a small canine to recover. Asked what helium didn’t similar astir the film, the composer says it could beryllium "a very, precise agelong list." #andrewlloydwebber #cats #catsthemovie #composer #broadway ♬ archetypal dependable - CBS Sunday Morning

Audiences were not sold by the integer fur added to Elba, Swift and co., and successful an unprecedented move, Universal Pictures rapidly released an updated mentation of the movie that it urged theaters to statesman showing arsenic soon arsenic imaginable — successful a concern akin to a video crippled spot designed to set wonky graphics. To this day, rumors persist astir a "butthole cut" of the movie that immoderate audiences glimpsed wherever computer-generated feline anuses were inactive contiguous connected quality actors.

Speaking previously, Webber has expressed a much quality signifier of disapproval for Cats: simply that the movie adaptation was the merchandise of a manager uninterested successful involving anyone from the archetypal musical. "The occupation with the movie was that [director] Tom Hooper decided, arsenic helium had with [Les Misérables] that helium didn't privation anybody progressive successful it who was progressive successful the archetypal show," Webber told The Sunday Times, via Entertainment Weekly. "The full happening was ridiculous."

IGN's Cats reappraisal returned a 4.5/10 score, and noted that the film's peculiar effects rendered the movie "a lifeless disaster, though a fewer of its much charismatic formed members, namely Judi Dench and Idris Elba, negociate to get a fewer licks successful to adhd an alluring, ironic campy value."

Tom Phillips is IGN's News Editor. You tin scope Tom astatine [email protected] oregon find him connected Bluesky @tomphillipseg.bsky.social