Cats Star Thought The Movie Would Change The World: Guess He Knows Better Now

It bombed at the box office, failing to recoup its budget, and it got torn apart both by professional reviewers and by audience alike. It clearly turned out to be one of those movies which actors and directors wish to erase from their resumes.

However, at the start there were big hopes riding on it.

For example, Jason Derulo (who played Rum Tum Tugger in the movie) remained convinced that Cats would be a smash hit, capable of changing the world, even after most people started growing suspicious of its prospects, following the release of its first trailer.

"I thought it was gonna change the world," he said in an interview with The Telegraph. "Even when I saw the trailer, I got chills down my spine!"

But in his particular case, the naivety can be excused: while Derulo is pretty famous as a singer and songwriter, his role in Cats was his very first movie role.

So, he might have gotten his expectations inflated by the fact that he was in the movie version of one of the most successful musicals ever, and he had no experience in his new job to give himself a reality check.

Furthermore, in theory everything about Cats appeared highly promising.

"For the longest time, I was trying to figure out what's the perfect first role," Derulo explained. "Cats checked all the boxes. You can't get a more start-studded cast, you don't get a more respected director than an Oscar winner, and Rum Tum Tugger is a legacy role, a standout character in a classic musical."

And he was not incorrect. Tom Hooper is a highly-awarded director.

The cast was full of talented and renowned actors, including such big names as Ian McKellen, Idris Elba, Jennifer Hudson, James Corden and Taylor Swift. But as it happened, even with all the right ingredients, a dish can still be cooked poorly.

While it is hard to tell how a project which had everything to succeed managed to go so wrong, there is no doubt that it did.

And Jason Derulo was probably not even the last person to realize that it is, in fact, going wrong, as evidenced by the movie being released in its final form.