‘Cats’ Trailer Becomes Top Twitter Trend Over Unsettling Look of Stars as CGI Felines

“Maybe we were too harsh on Sonic,” entertainment journalist Kristy Puchko opined

cats jennifer hudson
Universal Pictures

The “Cats” trailer dropped Thursday afternoon, and Twitter pounced. At the time of this writing, the movie was the top trending topic worldwide on Twitter with over 300,000 tweets. While that’s only a fraction of the record 50 million tweets that “Avengers: Endgame” accrued, it’s still an impressive initial response for a film based on a 38-year-old musical.

If you haven’t seen the trailer yet, the actors in Tom Hooper’s “Cats” all retain their human bodies and faces, but are covered in CGI fur and possess pointy ears and tails. Some viewers found the anthropomorphism unsettling, while others — like star Taylor Swift — were thrilled.  Reacting to her transformation into a feline, the singer tweeted, “I am a cat now and somehow that was everything.”

But if you wade through the many memes and reactions to the trailer Thursday, you’ll see people having a hard time finding the right words to express their feelings.

“I don’t know what I expected from ‘Cats” ‘digital fur technology’ but the short answer is NOT this. My brain has melted. My eyes are bleeding. There is no god,” entertainment journalist Kristy Puchko said on Twitter. “Maybe we were too harsh on Sonic.”

Puchko is referring to “Sonic the Hedgehog,” which spawned endless memes and perplexed reactions back in April, causing the producers to push back the film until they got the character design right.

The comparisons did not stop there. Others pointed to the 2003 Mike Myers live-action take on “The Cat in the Hat,” or to Hermione Granger after she drank a spiked Polyjuice Potion in “Harry Potter and the Chamber of Secrets.” Some have even grafted actor Nicolas Cage’s face onto their own house cats in their own fan casting.

As fun as the memes are, some people still genuinely enjoyed the trailer. It is, after all, based on a lavish Broadway musical with actors in cat costumes, so what did you expect?

“It’s not ‘Cats’ if it’s not tacky,” critic K. Austin Collins wrote on Twitter. “Frankly i could use more kitsch!! This is Andrew Lloyd Webber baby.”

“I call to order the campaign #DoNotFixTheCats. we like the cats, we just like them in the way where you like to make fun of something,” another user wrote.

Another chimed in, “Listen, that CATS trailer is bonkers. And we need more bonkers. I regret to inform you, I dug it.”

Take a look at some of the online reactions below. “Cats” opens in theaters Dec. 20.

https://twitter.com/buckligerzwerg/status/1151975086498504710

https://twitter.com/e_alexjung/status/1151975990924578816

https://twitter.com/thelindsayellis/status/1151977318270636032

https://twitter.com/DAREDEVllLS/status/1151977862876061696

https://twitter.com/xtinaisninja/status/1151977996384911362

https://twitter.com/melvillmatic/status/1151978506965983233

https://twitter.com/Megan_Nicolett/status/1151977927011160070

https://twitter.com/rauIesparza/status/1151979142067314688

https://twitter.com/ScottWamplerBMD/status/1151978745873518593

https://twitter.com/goodishomens/status/1151984086241558528?s=20

https://twitter.com/brightroars_/status/1151989027618209799?s=20

Brian Welk

Film Reporter • brian.welk@thewrap.com • Twitter: @brianwelk

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