At least the composer got a pet out of it?

Andrew Lloyd Webber hated the ‘appalling’ Cats movie so much that he bought a dog

At least the composer got a pet out of it?

By Raechal Shewfelt

Raechal Shewfelt

Raechal Shewfelt is a writer at **. She has been working at EW since 2024. Her work has previously appeared on Yahoo and in American *Journalism Review* and *The Shreveport Times*.

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March 31, 2026 11:01 p.m. ET

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'Cats' stars Francesca Hayward and Robbie Fairchild. Credit:

Universal Pictures / courtesy Everett Collection

Andrew Lloyd Webber is still *not* a fan of the 2019 movie *Cats*, which is based on his musical.

"After the appalling *Cats* movie, I went out and bought myself a little Havanese puppy," he told Mo Rocca on the latest episode of *CBS Sunday Morning*. "It's my therapy dog on planes. I just write a note to the airline saying, you know, reason for dog on plane and put *Cats* movie. And they always come back saying, 'No doctor's certificate required.'"

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When Rocca pressed him on his specific complaints about the film, Webber had a clever response.

"Well, is this a very, very long interview we're doing?" Webber asked. "Because it could be a very, very long list."

Not that Webber, the man behind the stage show that debuted in London in 1981 and became a hit worldwide, ever appreciated the adaptation.

He explained in August 2020 that he was unhappy with the result, to say the least.

Andrew Lloyd Webber in 2025.

Dave Benett/Getty

"The problem with the film was that [director] Tom Hooper decided, as he had with [*Les Misérables*] that he didn’t want anybody involved in it who was involved in the original show," Webber told the U.K's *Sunday Times*. "The whole thing was ridiculous.”

And in October 2021, he recounted the dog story, noting then that it was the first time he'd felt compelled to own a pooch in seven decades.

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He certainly wasn't alone in disliking the movie version of *Cats*.

Despite its Oscar-winning director and an A-list cast that included Jennifer Hudson, Judi Dench, Ian McKellen, Idris Elba, and noted cat-lover Taylor Swift, the movie was a box office dud.

Critics ripped it apart like a cat with a new set of curtains. It was deemed the worst movie of the year and a "cat-astrophe" that had left its stars "coughing up hairballs," among other things, according to Rotten Tomatoes. Overall, it received a rating of 19 percent based on 335 reviews.

The upside is that *Cats *really cleaned up at the infamous Razzies, where cast members including Rebel Wilson and James Corden, along with Hooper, won prizes.

A new version of the work, *Cats: The Jellicle Ball*, is now on Broadway.

- Musical Movies

Original Article on Source

Source: “EW Musical”