Cats (2019)

Movie
German title	Cats
Original title	Cats
Country of production	USA , UK
original language	English
Publishing year	2019
length	111 minutes
Age rating	FSK 0 ; JMK 0
Rod
Director	Tom Hooper
script	Tom Hooper, ; Lee Hall
production	Tom Hooper, ; Tim Bevan , ; Eric Fellner , ; Debra Hayward
music	Andrew Lloyd Webber
camera	Christopher Ross
cut	Melanie Oliver
occupation
	James Corden : Bustopher Jones; Judi Dench : Deuteronomy; Jason Derulo : Rum Tum Tugger; Idris Elba : Macavity; Jennifer Hudson : Grizabella; Ian McKellen : Gus; Taylor Swift : Bombalurina; Rebel Wilson : Jennyanydots; Francesca Hayward : Victoria; Laurie Davidson : Mr. Mistoffelees;

Cats is a fantasy musical film by Tom Hooper based on the musical of the same name . The film was released in US cinemas on December 20, 2019, and opened in the United Kingdom on December 26, 2019 in Germany.

action

A large flock of cats gather once a year at a London rubbish tip to celebrate the Jellicle Ball , at the end of which a cat is chosen to be reborn and given a new cat life. Young Victoria is thrown into the middle of this group because she is abandoned by her owner. The cats who are interested in being chosen introduce themselves or are introduced to her. Again and again the cats are startled by the appearance of a tomcat named Macavity, which is not explained at first - in contrast to the dislike of the cat Grizabella, which was once a star until she met Macavity. At each of his appearances, one of the cats that wanted to stand for election disappears. This is followed by the actual ball. Finally, Alt Deuteronimus gives a moving speech to the human audience before the cats scatter in all directions in the light of the morning.

The musical cats

The musical Cats , which premiered on May 11, 1981 at the New London Theater in London , is based on TS Eliot's poems from Old Possum's Book of Practical Cats and was supplemented, for example, by the text to Memory by Trevor Nunn . The music is by Sir Andrew Lloyd Webber .

production

Staff, cast and dubbing

Directed by Tom Hooper , who also wrote the script with Lee Hall.

The professional ballet dancer Francesca Hayward embodies Victoria.

The German synchronization , which includes excluding credits and singing, was created under the dialogue director of Manuel Straube and Patrick Baehr and under the musical direction of Thomas Amper on behalf of the Film & TV sync GmbH, Berlin.

role	Original speaker	German version
role	Original speaker	Voice actor	Singing voice
Victoria	Francesca Hayward	Julia Milena Scheeser
Bombalurina	Taylor Swift	Pia Allgaier
Bustopher Jones	James Corden	Manuel Straube
Cassandra	Mette Towley	Runa Aléon	Sabrina Weckerlin
Grizabella	Jennifer Hudson	Patricia Meeden
Growling	Ray Winstone	Martin Umbach
Gus "Asparagus" the theater cat	Ian McKellen	Thomas Rauscher
Jenny Fleckenreich	Rebel Wilson	Uschi Hugo	Kalpna Joshi
Macavity	Idris Elba	Thomas Amper
Mr. Mistoffelees	Laurie Davidson	Andreas Bongard
Mungojerrie	Danny Collins	Rainer Fritzsche	Toby Heinz
Munkustrap	Robbie Fairchild	Patrick Stanke
Ancient deuteronism	Judi Dench	Kerstin de Ahna	Marion Martienzen
Rum Tum Tugger	Jason Derulo	Philipp Buettner
Rumpleteazer	Naoimh Morgan	Carin Filipčić
Skimbleshanks	Steven McRae	Patrick Roche

Film music, marketing and publishing

In mid-November 2019, Polydor Records released the song Beautiful Ghosts , which the singer Taylor Swift wrote with Andrew Lloyd Webber . The soundtrack album Cats - Highlights From the Motion Picture Soundtrack with the music of Webber, which comprises a total of 16 pieces of music, was released on December 20, 2019 by Polydor and Republic Records . The album debuted at number 4 on the Official Soundtrack Albums Chart Top 50 in the UK on December 27, 2019.

A first trailer was presented in mid-July 2019. The world premiere took place on December 16, 2019 in New York. The film was released in US and UK theaters on December 20, 2019, and launched in Germany on December 26, 2019.

Differences to the musical template

While the musical mostly uses the rubbish dump as the setting due to the limited possibilities for changing the stage design, the film uses its possibilities to change locations; for example to show the cats different homes. Furthermore, when the cats sing in the musical, they address the audience in the audience. In the film this is only taken up at the end by Old Deuteronomy; beforehand, their singing is primarily aimed at Victoria, who is discovering her world. In the musical she is one of the jellicles that communicates exclusively through dance and facial expressions. She got a song for the film.

reception

Age rating

In the United States, the Motion Picture Association of America (MPAA) rated the film as a PG (i.e., children should be accompanied by parents). In Germany, the film was approved by the Film Industry Voluntary Self-Regulation (FSK) without any age restriction.

Reviews

The film received a negative verdict among the reviews listed on Rotten Tomatoes .

The film critic Antje Wessels sums up in her review that Tom Hooper and his crew stayed close to the stage template for their film version of Cats . The big problem of the film is the optics: “When recording from further away, you can overlook it due to the high quality dance and singing performances. But due to the many close-ups of human faces in CGI cat costumes in combination with the artificial world jumping back and forth between the perspectives, most of this seems very strange for most of the time. "

Simon Ackers of Rolling Stone writes, Cats are sick of the thoroughly staid staging of Hoopers, and opulence, glamor and the love of the over-the-top moment are missing here everywhere. I also get upset about the consistency with which Hooper irons out all the erotic or homo-erotic from the original.

The cultural journalist Dominik Lapp, on the other hand, finds that Tom Hooper's film is a magical homage to the stage version and that therefore the stylistic elements of film and stage were deliberately interwoven.

Gross profit

The budget of 95 million US dollars is offset by worldwide revenues of 73.7 million US dollars.

Cats was considered a disaster for the production company Universal Studios shortly after its release . According to industry insiders, marketing and distribution costs were roughly the same as the budget of just under $ 100 million. In addition, the studio had a reworking of the film made for an additional, unspecified six-figure amount and handed over to the cinemas, as there were still a few errors in the film on the release date that were discussed on the Internet (among other things, the to conceal human hand by Judi Dench with digital cat fur). The most important factors for the loss at the box office include the sometimes devastating reviews and the release date, which collided with Star Wars: The Rise of Skywalker .