From butthole cuts to VFX crunch scandals and more, you would’ve thought that everything that could’ve been said about the film adaptation of the musical “Cats” has been said. You thought wrong.
One person who has been radio silent about the film’s reception has been Andrew Lloyd Webber, the famed musical composer who created the original stage production upon which the movie is based. That changed recently though following Webber’s participation in a live commentary.
Webber’s commentary, which is up on YouTube, was filmed for the 1998 version of his stage play and was done in memory of his cat Mika who was run over by a car last month. Throughout the broadcast he reportedly remained fairly quiet about the recent film, though when the Bustopher Jones number came up he took an opportunity to swipe at actor James Corden’s portrayal without exactly mentioning him by name:
“Bustopher without interruption, as I wrote it. Do not be beguiled by other versions. Other versions with unfunny interpolations which I begged to be cut out. I did manage to get the worst of them removed. I cannot tell you how absolutely un-Eliot it all was in this song… He certainly didn’t hang around on a seesaw.”
Webber’s musical was an adaptation of a 1930s cat-themed poem collection by T.S. Eliot and so took many inspirations from that work – inspirations the films seem to mostly ignore. “Cats” famously bombed with critics and box-office, and is still available on demand everywhere.
Source: Cinema Blend
