Idris Elba will play a dashing cat in Tom Hooper’s Cats adaptation

Last Updated on August 2, 2021

One of the oddest projects in pre-production right now is the movie version of the Broadway musical CATS, which is set to be directed by Tom Hooper (THE KING’S SPEECH, LES MISERABLES) and starring Ian McKellen, Taylor Swift, Jennifer Hudson and James Corden. As weird as that sounds the movie just got an extra dose of dashing with Idris Elba joining the cast as the villainous kitty, Macavity. Now all you have to do is picture him with ears, claws and a smart-looking tail. For his eye's they'll just use his Heimdall ones. 

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Okay, so the role may not exactly be James Bond, but it's a big one indeed, as the character has numerous songs sung about him and has a pivotal role as the play’s major villain. In the play, he kidnaps the character named Old Deuteronomy and attempts to do the same to Demeter. I do not know who these cats are or why Macavity seeks to capture them, but I can assume it has something to do with hating their names. Classics like Snowball and Muffin would’ve been just as acceptable and much less confusing.

Elba is currently shooting HOBBS & SHAW with Dwayne Johnson and Jason Statham, and the first look at him was revealed by Johnson on his Instagram. The movie is aiming for a 2019 release, so it’s likely that as soon as Elba is done with HOBBS he will go into putting on his ears and fur for CATS. This will be the second big-screen cat role under his belt after playing the villain Shere Khan in 2016’s THE JUNGLE BOOK. If he plays one more, he will instantly begin to grow actual whiskers.

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Distributed by Universal Pictures, the movie is produced by Working Title's Tim Bevan and Eric Fellner, with Steven Spielberg, Lloyd Webber, and Angela Morrison executive producing. Hooper adapted the script with Lee Hall (BILLY ELLIOT, WAR HORSE, ROCKETMAN), and the movie is expected to hit theaters in December 2019.