Reactions To First Cats Footage Are Purr-fectly Split

As soon as it comes to the way fans feel about the Cats reboot, it's clear no frisky feline has anyone's tongue.


Following a brief tease at CinemaCon back in April, the opening full-length trailer for the musical debuted on Thursday night (July 18), revealing the human-cat hybrid forms represented by names like Taylor Swift, Idris Elba, Judi Dench, James Corden, Jason Derulo, and Jennifer Hudson.


At first glance, it looks like a fairly faithful representation of the original legendary Broadway hit, complete with familiar songs and characters, perhaps with added story bits sprinkled in for good measure. Although despite all this, it definitely didn't appear to get fans purring with delight – far from it, case in point, for the most part.


So what did fans think of the lengthy clip teasing the upcoming film? If we're being straightforward, most reactions weren't exactly pretty.


All across social media, criticism for the footage ranged from the choice to prepare the cats appear more humanoid than their furry counterparts from the original show, their apparently unsettling place in the "uncanny valley," and why overtly "horrifying" the actors done up as their feline selves actually were. There were a myriad of complaints tearing across Twitter after the trailer's debut, and then some of these were sort of hilarious.


But for every negative comment, it appeared there were still hopeful Cats fans out there looking forward to seeing the film adaptation, even if their reactions were admittedly low in number. Several of these followed a similar structure: they didn't care what anyone thought about them, they were excited to be able to see the movie. And that's a good attitude to have. People can absolutely like things, soon considering that. It just seems like in this case those who aren't exactly enamored with the Jellicle cats' new look may be in the vocal majority.


Some people just couldn't get over Taylor Swift in her new furry form.


How will crowds ultimately feel about Cats any time it starts prowling around theaters later this year? We'll have to wait and visualize any time it debuts on December 20, 2019, just in time for the holidays.