Just this summer, Working Title scored with the surprise comedy hit “Yesterday,” which imagines a world in which nobody knows the music of the Beatles. It’s hoping to close out 2019 on a high with the Dec. 20 release of “
Cats,” the risky big-screen version of Andrew Lloyd Webber’s stage smash.
And yes, Bevan, Fellner and their team have seen the memes and read the mean tweets that greeted the first trailer for “
Cats.”
Commentators feasted on the way that an A-list cast that includes Taylor Swift and Judi Dench had been feline-ized with whiskers and swishing tails, calling the transformation creepy. The two executives are taking a “there’s no such thing as bad publicity” stance, noting that the online furor raised the movie’s profile.
“What does one say?” says Fellner. “The reality is that 100 million people or more saw the trailer, and, yes, there were some people that didn’t like it, and as is the world we live in, those who didn’t like it were the most vociferous.”
Bevan has his own theory: “They were probably people who didn’t know ‘Cats,’ and the fact is they were either anticipating something animated or something that was on four legs. Among people who know ‘Cats,’ the reaction was pretty solid.”
Moreover, the cats themselves have changed in appearance. The versions that were shown in the initial trailer were not the finished renditions; they were the result of a mad scramble to get visual effects shots completed in time for the teaser, says Fellner. “You’re seeing subtle changes,” he says. “The characters have progressed and are progressing every day.”
‘Cats’: Working Title’s Tim Bevan, Eric Fellner’s Latest British Bet – Variety