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[[folder:The stage musical]]
* ActingForTwo:
** This is standard practice in all productions, although which cats the actors double for tend to vary (Bustopher Jones and Old Deuteronomy are almost always the same actor). In all productions with "[[ShowWithinAShow Growltiger's Last Stand]]", Asparagus and Jellyorum double as Growltiger and Griddlebone, except for in the video production, where the late Sir Creator/JohnMills was too ill to perform the necessary choreography.
** Plato is also often double cast for Macavity as well as Alonzo or Admetus being double cast as The Rumpus Cat.
** In some productions, the same actor portrays Bustopher Jones, The Rumpus Cat, and Asparagus (who goes on to play Growltiger).
* AwesomeDearBoy: Elaine Paige played Grizabella in the original West End run because she wanted to sing "Memory". She had heard the commercial version on the radio and had been intending to ask Andrew Lloyd Webber for permission to record a version of her own when the phone rang - and she was asked if she would replace the injured Judi Dench.
* CutSong:
** Depending on the production, either "The Awefull Battle of The Pekes and the Pollicles" or "Growltiger's Last Stand" is left out. The 1998 production, for example, cut the latter song out, but a few productions do put in both.
** Most recent tours cut out "The Pekes and the Pollicles", but strangely enough, there is still usually an entry in the cast list for the Great Rumpus Cat.
** For amateur productions, especially youth productions, it's more common to cut "Growltiger's Last Stand" than "The Awefull Battle of the Pekes and the Pollicles" due to the Siamese cats in the former traditionally being depicted as offensive stereotypes.
** Additionally, most productions cut a verse out of "Mungojerrie and Rumpelteazer", though there's not really a consistency on ''which'' verse.
** Much of Mistoffelees' dance solo from his title song was cut in the video production.
** There was a bit called "The Ballad of Billy [=McCaw=]", that was supposed to be Growltiger & Griddlebone's "last duet", and took place in the middle of "Growltiger's Last Stand". The bit was replaced by the "In Una Tepida Notte".
* DarkHorseCasting: This worked in the original run's favor. As there were no notable stars in the cast, it allowed the musical to run much longer without any major changes.
* FandomLifeCycle: Stage 6a. The fandom predominantly existed in the 1980s and 1990s and the musical became a pop-culture fixture, but then it went off Broadway. There are signs of a Stage X due to the Broadway revival and film adaptation.
* FilmedStageProduction: A staging at the Adelphi Theatre in London was filmed and [[DirectToVideo released on video]] in 1997. It eventually aired on public television as well, so parts of the show were cut to fit the runtime of a television broadcast.
* IronyAsSheIsCast: During Victoria's ballet number, she is supposed to tremble a bit and look nervous, because Victoria is a young cat at her first Jellicle Ball. However, casting calls for Victoria require women who are exceptional at ballet.
* NonSingingVoice: In the video version, Veerle Casteleyn as Jemima was dubbed by Helen Massey because the producers were worried her Flemish accent wouldn't be understandable in her solos, while Geoffrey Garratt as Skimbleshanks was dubbed by David Arneill in order to ''give'' him a Scottish accent. Of course, given [[SungThroughMusical the nature of the show]], they pretty much have ''no'' voice.
* TheOtherMarty: Happened in both the original London and Broadway productions:
** In London, Creator/JudiDench was to play both Jennyanydots and Grizabella, During rehearsals, Dench suffered a hamstring injury which prevented her from playing Jennyanydots. At a later rehearsal she compounded it by falling off the stage, so she couldn't play Grizabella either. At that point, Elaine Paige stepped in. Dench made up for it by playing Old Deuteronomy in the 2019 film.
** In New York, Don Correia was cast as Skimbleshanks. He left almost immediately, so Willie Rosario, who was understudying the role, took over. Rosario was badly injured during rehearsals, so ''his'' understudy, Reed Jones, replaced him and opened the show. Things ended well for Rosario: after recovering, he was given the role in the first national tour.
** Nicole Scherzinger pulled out of the 2016 Broadway Revival last-minute and subsequently got replaced by Music/LeonaLewis.
* PromotedFanboy: Creator/AndrewLloydWebber's passion for adapting ''Literature/OldPossumsBookOfPracticalCats'' into a musical was out of his own nostalgia for having it be read to him as a child.
* RoleReprise: For the video version:
** Elaine Paige and Susan Jane Tanner reprise their roles from the original London production as Grizabella and Jellylorum, respectively.
** Ken Page reprised his role as Old Deuteronomy from the 1982 Broadway run.
* SleeperHit: This was essentially an underdog passion project that Andrew Lloyd Weber had to take out a second mortgage on his house to fund - and in fact few people in the musical theatre community would touch it. Despite lukewarm critical reviews and noted Broadway veteran Elaine Stritch walking out of the show in disgust, it turned into a massive hit.
* WhatCouldHaveBeen:
** "Memory" was a late addition to the soundtrack, as it isn't based on any of the TS Elliot poems in the book. Andrew Lloyd Weber had composed the melody years before but took inspiration from an unpublished poem that didn't make the book for being too sad. Then of course it ends up as the musical's most emotional song.
** There were plans for an AnimatedAdaptation in the 90s by Creator/{{Amblimation}}, Creator/StevenSpielberg's short-lived animation arm of his production studio. He drafted plans for it to be set during the Blitz of World War II, using an art style inspired by German expressionism. It got stuck in the script stage when the writers couldn't figure out how to make the episodic nature of the show work for film. Amblimation ended up closing after their only three films flopped and with the script not having made any more progress, the project quietly dissolved.
* WrittenInInfirmity: Averted; Sir Creator/JohnMills, who played Gus in the video version, was nearly blind during filming, but his condition was in no ways hinted at in the film, though it is relatively obvious if you know the signs.
* ViralMarketing: The overall unbelievable success of the Musical was attributed to a lot of things, gaining initial traction due to the sheer over-the-top costume design to the fact the simple story and flashy colors made it very popular to foreign tourists who didn't speak English very well. With that bit of momentum, the show ended up enjoying a viral explosion as critics and news sources couldn't believe a Musical about cat people could be so popular, thus galvanizing interest in the show.
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[[folder:The 2019 film]]
* AbilityOverAppearance: Despite being considered too young to play Grizabella, Creator/JenniferHudson's performance of "Memory" was named as one of the redeeming things about the film.
* ActorInspiredElement: Old Deutoronomy was given a GenderFlip just so Creator/JudiDench could play it.
* AllStarCast:
** The 2019 film, with the exception of newcomer Francesca Hayward as Victoria, is chockful of big names, including acting heavyweights Creator/JudiDench, Creator/JamesCorden, Creator/IanMcKellen, Creator/RebelWilson and Creator/IdrisElba, as well as notable musicians Music/JasonDerulo, Music/JenniferHudson and Music/TaylorSwift.
** The Japanese dub, [[NoDubForYou one of the few foreign translations with an official dub]], is not a slouch in this department either, as features a mix of either professional voice actors, theater and/or movie actors, actors that worked in musicals and, and a mix of all the above; the cast includes Creator/KoichiYamadera (Macavity), Creator/MamoruMiyano (Mungojerrie), Creator/MiyukiSawashiro (Rumpleteazer), Creator/KazuhiroYamaji (Growltiger), Akira Takarada (Gus),[[note]]better known for many non-Japanese viewers for playing Hideo Ogata in [[Film/{{Gojira}} the original 1954 Godzilla film]][[/note]], Win Morisaki (Mr. Mistoffelees)[[note]]Non-Japanese viewers can recognize him as Daito/Toshiro Yoshiaki from ''Film/ReadyPlayerOne''.[[/note]], Creator/RomiPark (Cassandra) and many others.
* {{Blooper}}: The film has several instances of things that were missed during editing, such as Creator/JudiDench's wedding ring being visible at one point, and several cats seen wearing sneakers during the Jellicle Ball. Reportedly, a hastily re-edited version fixing the errors was rush-released to theaters in an attempt to fend off some of the film's negative publicity.
* BoxOfficeBomb: It cost $95 million to produce and $196 million in total including advertising, but it only managed to gross $73 million worldwide. Between being an internet punching bag [[TaintedByThePreview from the moment the first trailer dropped]], the horrid reviews, being [[UnintentionalUncannyValley too creepy]] and [[FetishRetardant too sexualized]] [[WhatDoYouMeanItsForKids for the family crowd]], having to patch the film ''after it was out'' to fix some [[SpecialEffectsFailure unfinished effects]], and coming out on the exact same day as ''[[Film/TheRiseOfSkywalker Star Wars: The Rise of Skywalker]]'', [[https://issuu.com/deadline2/docs/cats_loss_2019/1?ff&pageLayout=singlePage Universal lost $113 million on the film.]]
* BreakawayPopHit: The MovieBonusSong "Beautiful Ghosts" has done much better than the film itself, even getting a UsefulNotes/GoldenGlobeAward nomination (the ''only'' positive award nomination the film got on the mainstream circuit).
* ChristmasRushed: The film was rushed for its Christmas release. This is evident in several incomplete visual effects, such as Creator/JudiDench's human hand and wedding ring being visible in one shot. Creator/TomHooper later admitted that he and his crew didn't have enough time to properly finish the film before its release date, and that it was only finished at ''8 AM on the day before the premiere''. The studio later reissued the film as an UpdatedRerelease that fixed several of these issues, an unprecedented move for a film so soon after its initial release.
* CreatorBacklash:
** While Creator/JamesCorden admitted he hasn't seen the final cut, he's heard that it's terrible. Predictably enough, he's mocked it on his late night show. Corden and Creator/RebelWilson would later mock the film when presenting that year's UsefulNotes/AcademyAward for Best Visual Effects, doing so in cat costumes and saying they knew from personal experience the importance of visual effects to a film's success (the bit itself received a polarizing reception, especially from the VFX community who felt that their hard work was being trivialized, and even more so since one of the effects studios involved shut down just days before the film's release). When Wilson presented the UsefulNotes/{{BAFTA}} for Best Director, she jokingly noted that the film was snubbed. Later, Corden and Wilson willingly accepted the UsefulNotes/{{Golden Raspberry Award}}s for Worst Supporting Actor and Worst Supporting Actress, respectively.
** Downplayed by Music/TaylorSwift, who said that she enjoyed making the film and had no regrets about appearing in the end product (especially seeing how she got to co-write a song with Creator/AndrewLloydWebber himself), but later described it as "weird-ass" and also subtly poked fun at some aspects of its production.
** Universal quietly removed the film from its For Your Consideration campaigning site.
** As for Andrew Lloyd Weber, he took the film so badly that in order to get his mind off of it he adopted a Havanese puppy. As some have put it, you know you've failed when your movie about cats is so bad the original writer adopts a ''dog''.
* CreatorCouple: In the Japanese dub, Creator/KazuhiroYamaji (Growltiger) and Creator/RomiPark (Cassandra) are married in RealLife. It should be noted, however, they both tied the knot a few weeks after the Japanese release of the film.
* CutSong: "The Awefull Battle of the Pekes and the Pollicles" didn't make it into the film version. "Growltiger's Last Stand" has also been cut down to one verse, though this is justified since the context of the song is now completely different.
* DarkHorseCasting: Francesca Hayward (Victoria) is primarily known as the principal dancer in the Royal Ballet rather than as a singer or actress. She had made her film debut only three months before this film was released in ''Romeo & Juliet: Beyond Words'', a movie done entirely in ballet.
* DearNegativeReader:
** Music/JasonDerulo (Rum Tum Tugger) was quite vocal about his feelings towards critics giving the film negative reviews, calling it "one of the greatest pieces of art ever made," and declared that the only people who should be allowed to give opinions on movies are [[LetsSeeYouDoBetter filmmakers themselves]]. Unfortunately for him, his prediction that a massive audience turnout would vindicate it did not come true.
** When Creator/JamesCorden and Creator/RebelWilson poked fun at the quality of the effects while presenting that year's UsefulNotes/AcademyAward for Best Visual Effects, the Visual Effects Society wrote an angry letter to them in reply, telling them that they had no right to mock the effort that the movie's visual effects team had put into the end product. At first this got a polarizing reaction, with some feeling that Corden and Wilson had taken a cheap shot, and others pointing out that this probably wasn't the best hill for the visual effects team to die on given that they turned in a cut with incomplete effects. With subsequent revelations of the problems caused by director Tom Hooper's ignorance of how the visual effects process works, however, many have more firmly sided with the effects team (though in fairness, it's unclear if Corden and/or Wilson had any way of knowing this).
* DisownedAdaptation: Creator/AndrewLloydWebber himself later called the film [[https://deadline.com/2020/08/andrew-lloyd-webber-cats-movie-tom-hooper-1203001983/ "ridiculous"]], calling out Creator/TomHooper [[OnlyTheCreatorDoesItRight for not wanting anyone involved in the making of the original show involved.]] He was so upset by the film that he actually bought himself a therapy dog.
* DVDCommentary: The [[https://io9.gizmodo.com/cats-is-a-medieval-morality-play-20-highlights-from-to-1842387249 director's commentary by Tom Hooper that only adds to the weirdness.]]
* ExecutiveMeddling: After the nuclear reaction online to the first trailer, Universal cut funding for the film and quietly cancelled their Oscar campaign for it. This left the VFX team with four months to complete the entire rest of the film by Christmas, with Creator/TomHooper demanding changes right up to the eleventh hour.
* FakeBrit: Music/JenniferHudson, Music/TaylorSwift and Music/JasonDerulo are Americans adopting some...[[WhatTheHellIsThatAccent questionable accents]]. Several other cast members are also non-Brits.[[note]]Robbie Fairchild (Munkustrap), Mette Towley (Cassandra) and Eric Underwood (Admetus) are American; Creator/RebelWilson and Steven [=McRae=] are Australian, Naoimh Morgan (Rumpleteazer) is Irish.[[/note]]
* FollowTheLeader: It's been theorised that Universal took note of the runaway success of ''Film/TheGreatestShowman'' and hoped to recapture that. Additionally Creator/TomHooper's ''Film/LesMiserables2012'' and its numerous UsefulNotes/AcademyAward nominations was a deciding factor.
* HostilityOnTheSet: At least one anonymous VFX artist has said that the relationship between Creator/TomHooper and the VFX team was less than amicable. In addition to the crew having a ''ninety hour'' work week, forcing many of them to sleep at the studio in between shifts, Hooper's limited knowledge on how CGI and animation worked made it difficult for him to judge their work objectively (among his frequent demands was footage of real cats performing the actions the actors would in the movie), not helped by his apparent condescending attitude when he couldn't get the artists to understand what he wanted from them. The same artist referred to Hooper as "demeaning":
-->When you go into a conference room, you're not allowed to speak. And he talks to you like you're garbage.
* InternationalCoproduction: A USA-UK-Canada-Australia-China-Japan co-production. It was coproduced by Creator/{{Universal}} (US), Creator/AmblinEntertainment (US), Working Title (UK), [[VideoGame/PerfectWorld Perfect World Pictures]] (China), Creator/{{Toho}} (Japan), and Dentsu (Japan).
* MagnumOpusDissonance: Universal were apparently planning for a big Academy Awards push for the movie -- likely due to the combination of Creator/TomHooper having previously directed the Best Picture-winning ''Film/TheKingsSpeech'', and several other film musicals having enjoyed big success at the Oscars in the 2000s and 2010s -- but quickly abandoned it after the movie was released to an extremely toxic reception and box-office failure. Movie-goers and critics alike were quick to point out that literally any other movie that Universal released in 2019 would likely have had a better chance of winning Best Picture. It did end up winning awards, though... [[UsefulNotes/GoldenRaspberryAward Golden Raspberry Awards]], that is, with the film being nominated for nine Razzies and winning six; Worst Picture, Worst Director (making Tom Hooper the third person in history to win both Best and Worst Director), Worst Screenplay, Worst Supporting Actor (Creator/JamesCorden), Worst Supporting Actress (Creator/RebelWilson), and Worst Screen Combo ("Any Two Half-Feline/Half-Human Hairballs"). [[labelnote:*]]It also received additional nominees in the last two categories it won, for Creator/JudiDench ([[https://www.cinemablend.com/news/2492607/cats-star-judi-dench-had-a-purr-fect-response-to-her-razzie-award-nomination who didn't seem to mind]]), and "Music/JasonDerulo & His CGI-Neutered "Bulge"" respectively, and Francesca Hayward was also nominated for Worst Actress but lost to Creator/HilaryDuff for ''The Haunting of Sharon Tate''.[[/labelnote]]
* NoDubForYou: Due to being a musical, most countries didn't dub this film, even those where dubbing is mandatory by law. The few exceptions are Japan (partly due to the Japanese love for the musical genre and the original ''Cats'' in particular), Italy and Spain. Brazil and Spanish-speaking Latin America has a dub for the spoken parts only.
* RealitySubtext: Ballerina Francesca Hayward, one of the only performers in the movie who's not known for singing or acting, plays a NaiveNewcomer.
* SavedFromDevelopmentHell: Creator/StevenSpielberg planned an AnimatedAdaptation in TheNineties. It would have been Creator/{{Amblimation}}'s fourth feature (parent company Creator/AmblinEntertainment, which still owned the adaptation rights, gets a production credit). Some [[https://io9.gizmodo.com/stunning-concept-art-for-spielbergs-animated-cats-movie-1599739506 concept art]] of that version was released shortly after this film was announced.
* TroubledProduction: The film became one of the most infamous films of 2019, and its "[[UnintentionalUncannyValley digital fur technology]]" [[BileFascination became a punching bag across social media]] from the moment the first trailer dropped, mainly due to a turbulent production and rushed effects.
** Rather than use MotionCapture, as is standard, CGI artists had to manually [[{{Rotoscoping}} rotoscope]] the actors in post, as Creator/TomHooper felt that motion capture suits would interfere with the actors' performances. Hooper's insistance on realism (similar to his success on ''Film/LesMiserables2012'') led to a number of difficulties, especially given the surreal and over-the-top nature of the [[Theatre/{{Cats}} original theater production]]. Hooper also wanted the actors to use footage of actual cats performing as reference.
** Like ''Les Mis'' before it, audio for the musical numbers was done by capturing live audio from the set along with the performance, sometimes with the songs rewritten just prior to shooting. This meant that -- since there was no click track, piano or orchestra to guide the actors, and Hooper encouraged them to be loose with their performances -- the phrasing and timing drifted, especially given the strains of live performance and the melding of what could be wildly different takes. This, in turn, put the orchestra in the difficult position of trying to play along with uneven melodies, rather than being the lead for the singers to follow.[[note]]One notable exception to this is Skimbleshanks' number, which uses [[UncommonTime very precise 13/8 time]] to simulate a steam train; note that Steven [=McRae=] always uses rubato within the tempo and beat, because he's both using a click track and tapping his feet to the rhythm.[[/note]]
** Hooper had never directed a film that relied heavily on effects like ''Cats'', and apparently had little understanding of how animation worked: Hooper was reportedly "demeaning" during meetings with the VFX staff, forbidding them from speaking and berating them for showing work-in-progress shots that weren't fully rendered, not realizing that they were not reflective of the final product.
** It took the crew six months just to complete two minutes of footage for the trailer, but they were left with a mere four months to finish the rest of the movie, which clocked in at nearly two ''hours''. This resulted in ninety hour work weeks where the animators were forced to sleep in their offices just to make the deadline. Near the end of production, a section of the VFX team were given the task of [[https://www.thedailybeast.com/i-edited-the-buttholes-out-of-cats-it-was-a-total-nightmare hastily editing out the visible CGI cat anuses on all of the characters]], resulting in the fabled "butthole cut".
** Between Hooper demanding changes up to the 11th hour and Universal [[ChristmasRushed rushing the film out]] for an Oscar push, it had the bad luck of being finished just 24 hours before its premiere, and it hit theaters with several effects unfinished, most notoriously a few shots of Creator/JudiDench's real hand. This resulted in it being the first film to ever have a newly completed version released after it had already been in theaters, which was unfavorably compared to a video game getting a day one patch. The final film was critically mauled, won six [[UsefulNotes/GoldenRaspberryAward Razzie awards]], and [[Main/BoxOfficeBomb lost over $100 million]] for Universal.
* UnderageCasting: Grizabella is often portrayed by an older actress and is depicted as either middle-aged or elderly. Jennifer Hudson was 37 while filming.
* WhatCouldHaveBeen
** Creator/AnneHathaway, Music/{{Rihanna}}, and Creator/HughJackman were offered unspecified roles, which they turned down.
** Creator/RobBrydon revealed on an episode of ''Series/WouldILieToYou'' that he auditioned for Growltiger.
** The cats were originally supposed to have visible ''anuses'' as part of the actors' CGI costumes. The decision to remove them came so late in the production that an entire section of the VFX team were tasked with finding every shot that included a visible cat anus and reanimating it with BarbieDollAnatomy. The most notable leftover of this is during "The Old Gumble Cat" as the film comically focuses a lot of attention on Jennyanydots' rear during the song.
** At one point, the movie was actually going to be animated, but was turned into a live action film in [[AwardBait hopes of getting more awards at the Oscars]].
* WordOfGay: Judi Dench has suggested that her character Old Deuteronony (who is male in both the musical and source material) is [[https://www.digitalspy.com/movies/a30318298/cats-judi-dench-character-old-deuteronomy-trans/ transgender]].
* WritingByTheSeatOfYourPants: Music/TaylorSwift and Creator/AndrewLloydWebber fussed with the new song "Beautiful Ghosts" right up until the day of shooting, and since Creator/TomHooper insisted on capturing live audio from the set rather than recording in a studio, it was their only chance to get it down. If Francesca Hayward sounds uncertain while singing, it's because she'd only learned the song ''that morning''.
* WrittenByCastMember: Music/TaylorSwift worked with Creator/AndrewLloydWebber to create a new song ("Beautiful Ghosts") for the movie, with Swift writing the lyrics and Lloyd Webber writing the music.
* WrittenInInfirmity: Creator/JudiDench was suffering from macular degeneration by the time she did the film, enough that her previous role in ''Film/MurderOnTheOrientExpress2017'' had her sitting down most of the time. As such, in this film one can see Robert Fairchild (Munkustrap) or other members of the ensemble guiding her whenever she had to walk.[[note]]Oddly enough, this was also the case with Creator/JohnMills as Gus in the 1998 production.[[/note]]
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