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I've only seen clips of the movie, but those don't look very promising IMO. I read that this had a $95 million production budget, I can't fathom what they spent it on when looking at the end result.

Beyond that I'm quite a bit sceptical of choosing Cats for a movie adaption at all. It's nowhere near 'Phantom of the Opera' in terms of popularity, and the last (2004) movie of that musical didn't do particularly well at the box office.

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It could have turned out perfectly fine if they just used cats for the characters. Like, CGI cats that look like actual members of felis catus, instead of humans who accidentally drank a polyjuice potion with cat hair in it.

Alas, Tom Hooper has a habit of retaining stage musical-like elements when he makes movies based on stage musicals. He shot many scenes in Les Miserables in a way that felt more like a stage production than a cinematic one; the difference is stark if you compare it with, say, The Greatest Showman -- which is a movie about a stage production! But Les Miz wasn't too bad, it was just a bit awkward. This time it seems Hooper has gone one step too far, though.

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