Sir Ian McKellen will also star in the movie version of Andrew Lloyd Webber’s smash musical.<\/b>
\nJennifer Hudson, Taylor Swift, James Corden and Ian McKellen have been cast in Working Title\u2019s upcoming movie version of Andrew Lloyd Webber\u2019 s smash musical \u201cCats.\u201d
Tom Hooper, the Oscar-winning director of \u201cThe King\u2019s Speech,\u201d will direct \u201c Cats,\u201d which is set to begin shooting in Britain in November. The screenplay by Lee Hall (\u201cBilly Elliot\u201d) is based on Lloyd Webber\u2019s musical, which was itself adapted from a book of children\u2019s poems by T. S. Eliot.
Hudson, who won an Oscar in 2007 for her breakout role in \u201cDreamgirls,\u201d will play Grizabella, the former \u201cglamour cat\u201d who falls on hard times and gets to sing about it in showstopper \u201cMemory.\u201d It\u2019s unclear which roles will be played by Swift, Corden and McKellen.
The Daily Mail was the first to report the casting news, which was confirmed to Variety.
\u201cCats\u201d is one of the most successful musicals in history, enjoying long runs both in London\u2019s West End and on Broadway. The possibility of a movie version has long been bandied about.
Working Title\u2019s Eric Fellner and Tim Bevan brought another beloved stage musical, \u201cLes Miserables,\u201d to the big screen in 2012. That film was nominated for best picture at the Academy Awards and won a statuette for Anne Hathaway as best supporting actress.
Eliot\u2019s \u201cOld Possum\u2019s Book of Practical Cats,\u201d which was published in 1939, is a collection of poems about creatures known as \u201cJellicle cats\u201d and their secret world, but lacks an overarching storyline. Lloyd Webber\u2019s musical stitches the poems together into a tale of cats seeking some sort of feline redemption in the made-up \u201cHeaviside layer\u201d above London, \u201cup, up, up past the Russell Hotel.\u201d
Besides tired and tattered Grizabella, other characters include Old Deuteronomy, Macavity, and the Rum Tum Tugger.<\/p>\n

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