Tom Hooper to Direct Movie Version of Musical Cats, God Help Us

Tom Hooper, the prolific director of humorless Oscar-bait including Les Miserables, will direct a movie version of the musical Cats. And I’ll just say if I have to sit through a dirtied-up Anne Hathaway scream-belting “Memory” I swear to God I will burn the theater down.

For the handful of readers that have never heard of the show that ran on Broadway from 1987 to 2006, Andrew Lloyd Webber’s musical Cats is based on a collection of poetry by T.S. Eliot called “Old Possum’s Book of Practical Cats,” about a group of cats called the Jellicles. All the actors wear excessive cat makeup and there is a lot of jumping around and audience participation.

Last February, The Sun reported that Hooper was considering casting “young model-turned-actresses like Suki Waterhouse.” Uh, okay.

The musical is a largely boring showcase of the actors’ and dancers’ talents—I’m going to go out on a limb and say that an Anwar Hadid is not going to elevate it. Though if Hooper wanted to be funky and cast, like, a Carol Kane as Grizabella, I could get behind that.