Idris Elba Joins Jennifer Hudson, Taylor Swift in ‘Cats’ Movie AdaptationPosted by Wilson Morales
October 16 2018
Idris Elba is in final negotiations to join the film adaptation of the Andrew Lloyd Webber smash musical “Cats.”
This marks Elba’s second feline role following his take on Shere Khan in 2016’s “The Jungle Book.”
Tom Hooper, the Oscar-winning director of “The King’s Speech,” will direct the star-studded movie, also starring Jennifer Hudson, Taylor Swift, James Corden and Ian McKellen
The screenplay by Lee Hall (“Billy Elliot”) is based on Lloyd Webber’s musical, which was itself adapted from a book of children’s poems by T.S. Eliot.
“Cats” is one of the most successful musicals in history, enjoying long runs both in London’s West End and on Broadway. The possibility of a movie version has long been bandied about.
Hudson, who won an Oscar in 2007 for her breakout role in “Dreamgirls,” will play Grizabella, the former “glamour cat” who falls on hard times and gets to sing about it in showstopper “Memory.” It’s unclear which roles will be played by Swift, Corden and McKellen.
Eliot’s “Old Possum’s Book of Practical Cats,” which was published in 1939, is a collection of poems about creatures known as “Jellicle cats” and their secret world, but lacks an overarching story line. Lloyd Webber’s musical stitches the poems together into a tale of cats seeking some sort of feline redemption in the made-up “Heaviside layer” above London, “up, up, up past the Russell Hotel.”
Elba is currently filming “Hobbs & Shaw” with Dwayne Johnson and Jason Statham, and can next be seen in the Netflix comedy series “Turn Up Charlie,” which he also co-created and executive produced. He returns next year to his starring role in the hit BBC series “Luther,” which he also executive produces.
