The musical fantasy film Cats, released in 2019, turned out to be a box-office bomb despite the big names attached to it. To start with, the movie was based on American composer and impresario of musical theatre, Andrew Lloyd Webber’s eponymous Broadway musical.
Webber’s Broadway musical Cats has impressed millions of fans over the years. However, the movie adaptation failed to bring the same magic to the screens and became a huge disappointment for the composer. So much so, that it led to the impresario buying a dog just to live with the trauma of having his musical butchered for the screens.
Andrew Lloyd Webber Had to Get a Dog After Watching the 2019 Cats Movie
While Tom Hooper’s Cats was based on Andrew Lloyd Webber‘s musical, the musical itself was based on T. S. Eliot’s 1939 poetry collection Old Possum’s Book of Practical Cats. The movie had an ensemble cast featuring Hollywood veteran Ian McKellen, American singer and songwriters Taylor Swift and Jason Derulo, former TV host James Corden, and many others.
The movie was Hooper’s second feature musical after his first Les Miserables, starring A-list actors like Hugh Jackman and Anne Hathaway, had turned out to be a major hit with critics and fans. Unfortunately, Cats did not have the same fate as Les Miserables and failed to break even at the box office with a collection of $75.5 million against a production budget of $80-100 million.
Lloyd Webber expressed his disappointment with the movie in an interview and how it resulted in him becoming a dog owner. He told Variety:
“‘Cats’ was off-the-scale all wrong. There wasn’t really any understanding of why the music ticked at all. I saw it and I just thought, ‘Oh, God, no.’ It was the first time in my 70-odd years on this planet that I went out and bought a dog. So the one good thing to come out of it is my little Havanese puppy.”
The movie is still considered a disappointment and a cinematic adaptation that did not manage to hit the mark of the original work.
Andrew Lloyd Webber Managed to Get His Dog on an Aeroplane
Lloyd Webber’s attachment to the dog grew during the COVID-19 lockdown. It has come to a point where he needs the dog to be with at all times including a flight to New York City. Consequently, he convinced the airline authorities to let him keep the do with him.
In the same interview with Variety, he explained how he figured out a way to do this, saying:
“I wrote off and said I needed him with me at all times because I’m emotionally damaged and I must have this therapy dog. The airline wrote back and said, ‘Can you prove that you really need him?’ And I said ‘Yes, just see what Hollywood did to my musical “Cats.”’ Then the approval came back with a note saying, ‘No doctor’s report required.’”
It is quite hilarious how he got the airline authorities to bend the rules for him to take his dog with him. Not to mention that so many people agreed that the stress caused by the unsuccessful adaptation of the movie was enough to cause emotional trauma.
Cats is available for streaming on Apple TV+.
