It’s been announced that Jennifer Hudson, Taylor Swift, James Corden, and Sir Ian Mckellan will be joining the cast of Working Title’s upcoming film adaption of Cats. Andrew Lloyd Webber’s smash-hit musical, based on T.S. Eliot’s poetry collection Old Possum’s Book of Practical Cats, opened in the West End in 1981 and is one of the longest running musicals. The musical was turned into a made-for-television film in 1998, after plans to create an animated musical of it fell through.
In January, Webber announced he will compose a new song, sung by the white kitten Victoria, to be added to film version of the musical. The film adaption will be helmed by Oscar-winning director Tom Hooper (The King’s Speech), with the screenplay written by Lee Hall (Billy Elliot).
Cats is a sung-through musical that follows the story of a tribe of cats called The Jellicles, and the night on which they, and their tribe’s patriarch Old Deuteronomy, decide who will ascend to the Heavside Layer and come back to a new life.
Hudson is set to play Grizabella, a down-on-her-luck former ‘glamour cat’ searching for a new life. It’s not been announced yet which roles will be played by Swift, Corden or Mckellan.
Production is set to begin in Britain in November of this year.
