Taylor, J-Hud, Corden To Star In Cats Movie
• Jennifer Hudson, Taylor Swift, James Corden and Sir Ian McKellen have been cast in Working Title’s upcoming movie version of Andrew Lloyd Webber‘s venerable Broadway musical Cats.
Hudson, who won an Oscar in 2007 for her breakout role in Dreamgirls, will play Grizabella, the former “glamour cat” who falls on hard times and gets to sing about it in the showstopper, “Memory.” It’s unclear yet which roles will be played by Swift, McKellen and Corden, although Vanity Fair‘s Yohana Desta theorizes Swift could play Bombalurina, who sings “Macavity the Mystery Cat;” McKellen could portray Old Deuteronomy, the elderly Jellicle leader; and Corden could certainly breathe life into the role of Gus, the “theater cat.” And let’s not forget several other available roles — Skimbleshanks and the Rum Tum Tugger. Musical theatre buff Corden will be perfectly suited for this endeavor, given his hilarious “Crosswalk: The Musical” adaptations ofGrease, Phantom of the Opera, The Lion King, Mary Poppins, Hair, The Greatest Showman and Beauty and the Beast.
Tom Hooper, the Oscar-winning director of The King’s Speech, will direct Cats, which is set to begin shooting in the U.K. in November. The screenplay by Lee Hall (Billy Elliot) is based on Lloyd Webber’s musical, which was itself adapted from a book of children’s poems by T.S. Eliot. The Daily Mail was the first to report the casting news, which was confirmed to Variety.
