On Thursday, July 18th, 2019, right in the middle of San Diego Comic-Con, the first teaser trailer for Tom Hooper’s upcoming film adaptation of the musical Cats was released. Everyone was there — Taylor Swift, Idris Elba, a bunch of giant pieces of furniture and props meant to make the movie’s world appear more cat-like. And yet, despite the seemingly nonsensical promise of “digital fur technology,” what audiences ended up getting was something equally beautiful and horrifying.
The industry was well aware that the first Cats trailer was going to drop sometime late on Thursday. However, when the official Twitter account for Working Title, one of the companies producing the film, revealed that it would be dropping at 10 p.m. local time, everyone stateside quickly realized that they would get the chance to see said digital fur technology in action before the sun had set. So, everyone watched it and… and… well, nobody quite knows what to think or say at this point.
From mixtures of pure excitement and cautious optimism to downright, unrepentant horror, entertainment journalists covering Comic-Con, fans, and some of the usual Twitter suspects just couldn’t seem to wrap their heads around the Cats trailer. To be honest, it’s not even remotely possible to organize everyone’s responses. The best thing anyone can do is precisely what these people all did with the trailer: just try your best to take it all in and not go completely crazy.
https://twitter.com/ScottWamplerBMD/status/1151961707327176705
https://twitter.com/jaarlos/status/1151962142880489496/photo/1
What the actual fuck. https://t.co/3aKwtlagku
— Liz Shannon Miller (@lizlet) July 18, 2019
DIRECTOR OF THE "CATS" MOVIE: It looks great, right? People are going to want to fuck these cats so bad!
EVERYONE ELSE: …
— Josh Gondelman (@joshgondelman) July 18, 2019
— Chris Feil (@chrisvfeil) July 18, 2019
https://twitter.com/BAKKOOONN/status/1151962988267659265
https://twitter.com/alanzilberman/status/1151962311822860296
CATS (yes I will be seeing it but good god) pic.twitter.com/MOepwtZTG4
— Rachel Heine ✨ (@RachelHeine) July 18, 2019
https://twitter.com/ezwrites/status/1151961953897787392
https://twitter.com/carolineframke/status/1151962384707280912
👏 digital 👏 fur 👏 technology 👏 pic.twitter.com/sPq0ubepJZ
— Sam Adams (@SamuelAAdams) July 18, 2019
What. And how. And what. And why. And what. pic.twitter.com/9xpbBLlDHM
— Joanna Robinson (@jowrotethis) July 18, 2019
I DONT KNOW HOW TO FEEL ABOUT ANY OF THIS #CatsMovie pic.twitter.com/MxLdObyeEd
— Jarett Wieselman (@JarettSays) July 18, 2019
— hunter harris (@hunteryharris) July 18, 2019
https://twitter.com/AndrewHusband/status/1151961989226356742
THIS IS BETTER THAN I COULD POSSIBLY HAVE IMAGINED https://t.co/YTAevoqfVb
— karen han (@karenyhan) July 18, 2019
Well, I now no longer fear death. https://t.co/LhJt7IGAab
— Kayleigh Donaldson (@Ceilidhann) July 18, 2019
look, i know we all have a lot of questions right now, but the only thing i want to know is whether the fur coats the cats are wearing are made out of other cats pic.twitter.com/hUtcRBOBQp
— Alex Zalben (@azalben) July 18, 2019
https://twitter.com/loudmouthjulia/status/1151962474176032769
ah yes, just as I suspected: the cats have human boobs
— Dana Murphy (@manadurphy) July 18, 2019
My one hope for the Cats movie is that they don't CGI out the cat dicks like those pussies behind Lion King
— Vince Mancini (@VinceMancini) July 18, 2019
Pennywise taking the form that scares us the most pic.twitter.com/TSn5LwwcON
— Nick Romano (@NickARomano) July 18, 2019
Though, in the spirit of at least attempting to organize everything into a coherent nugget of information, here’s film writer Jason Bailey’s take on it all.
https://twitter.com/jasondashbailey/status/1151961695390183424
