When the first Cats trailer dropped over the summer, it felt like Christmas in July. There was joy in the air, the sun shone brighter, and everyone on the internet put their differences aside to come together for the sake of memes. Recently, a full-length trailer for the holiday blockbuster — an adaptation of the cult musical of the same name — arrived, but it elicited just as many questions. Why do some cats wear shoes? Why do they have human hands? If the cats aren't wearing clothes, then are they naked? What is happening?
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Director Tom Hooper doesn't have the answers, because he doesn't understand the questions.
“I was just so fascinated because I didn’t think it was controversial at all,” he told Empire about the internet's reaction. “So it was quite entertaining. Cats was apparently the number-one trending topic in the world, for a good few hours at least.”
He does, however, have an answer about some of the special effects, since they weren't fully finished when the first teaser dropped.
“All the visual effects were at quite an early stage,” he continued. “Possibly there were, in the extremity in some of the responses, some clues in how to keep evolving [the production]. When you watch the finished film, you’ll see that some of the designs of the cats have moved on since then, and certainly, our understanding of how to use the technology to make them work has gone up, too.”
But I think I speak for the general public when I say: Please, please, please don't change a thing.
Cats hits theaters December 25.