Cats director Tom Hooper has revealed that the controversial new live-action film had to be largely remade after the hugely critical reaction its first trailer received.

Upon its release back in July, the first Cats trailer was met with outrage and confusion across the internet.

Hooper has now revealed to The Times that the response to the trailer led the team behind the film to rethink their process, and used some of the critical responses to inform how they moved forward.


In the same interview, it’s revealed that the film was still not finished at the time Hooper spoke to the publication, just a few weeks before its cinematic release on December 20.

“On some level, the reaction to the trailer was insane,” Hooper reflects. “But I do think that there were lessons to be learnt.

“It was quite an amazing amount of feedback to get, very fast, on the design. I never intended, obviously, to make people feel uneasy, so I thought, ‘If this is being commented upon, then what can I learn from it?'”

He continued: “The problem with the trailer was that the faces had got lost in the effects. So I went back to the designs in August and a lot of those comments helped to guide me in what we did.”

Taylor Swift, James Corden, Idris Elba, Judi Dench, Jennifer Hudson, Jason Derulo and Rebel Wilson star opposite veteran actors Sir Ian McKellen and Judi Dench in this musical drama.


Cats isn’t the first CGI film this year to have a rethink after being critically panned – a new design for Sonic The Hedgehog was recently unveiled after its first attempt was branded as “the mascot for a disease” among other things.