Finally, we have an answer to the question of what the Cats in the movie Cats based on the musical Cats will look like: They will look like cats. In a departure from the sexy, skintight, vaguely humanoid costumes of the stage production, Tom Hooper’s movie will transform its A-list actors into more feline beings via CGI. Universal revealed this information at a presentation at CinemaCon, which also gave a look at the actors in mo-cap suits on the movie’s oversize sets, which are designed to make the cats, uh, cat-size. To be clear, the Jellicle Cats of the stage show also perform in an oversize junkyard set, but it won’t make it any less wild to see a furry, cat-size Taylor Swift pirouette around a lot when Cats arrives in theaters this December.
Universal did not reveal what the final renderings of the cats in Cats will look like. (Will they still be weirdly sexy like they were onstage?) But, per Slash Film, “The behind-the-scenes footage screened featured actors in leotards with markers on their face, placed there so visual effects wizards can add that realistic fur in post-production.†Someone please leak the “Judi Dench in a green suit†cut of this movie! Also, they got Jennifer Hudson to sing the big Cats song “Memory,†so here is Jennifer Hudson singing “Memory.â€