Cats Movie to Start Shooting in November; Wayne McGregor Signs On as Choreographer

Speculations about a big-screen adaptation of Andrew Lloyd Webber's Cats will be a mere memory later this year, when the movie is slated to officially begin filming, The Stage reports. The Royal Ballet's Wayne McGregor, movement director of Lloyd Webber's The Woman in White on Broadway, has been named choreographer of the previously reported film.

Working Title Films and Universal Studios are producing the movie musical, to be directed by Tom Hooper (of the big-screen Les Misérables). Casting is expected to take place this summer, with rehearsals scheduled to begin in September and shooting to kick off in November.

Based on T.S. Eliot's Old Possum's Book of Practical Cats, the musical tells the story of the Jellicle cats and each cat's individual quest to be selected as the lucky one who will ascend to "the Heaviside Layer." Cats debuted on Broadway in 1982, closing in 2000 after a record-breaking run at the Winter Garden Theatre (current home of Lloyd Webber's School of Rock).

Cats received a 2016 Broadway revival at the Neil Simon Theatre, which wrapped its run late last year. That production will soon embark on a U.S. national tour.

A release date for the Cats film is still to come. Look back at production footage from the Broadway revival below.