Taylor Swift and Andrew Lloyd Webber Set Sights on the Oscars With a ‘Cats’ Original Song

cats original song

Taylor Swift and Andrew Lloyd Webber put their paws together to compose an original song for Cats, Tom Hooper‘s mystifying adaptation of Webber’s Tony-winning stage musical. The pop singer and the legendary musical composer collaborated to compose an original song called “Beautiful Ghost” in a clear bid to earn the film an Oscar nomination.

Cats Original Song

It’s become almost a time-honored tradition now that every glitzy big-screen remake or stage adaptation gets an original song. It’s how those commercially viable films — even if they’re not the stuff of Oscar bait or awards buzz — squeeze in at least a little bit of prestige. We saw that earlier this year with the Beyoncé-penned original song for The Lion King, a practice that Disney has been honing for years.

Now Universal is getting in on that Best Original Song race with a Cats original song composed by the strangest of pairs: Grammy-winning pop star Taylor Swift and musical theater legend Andrew Lloyd Webber. Webber was the composer of the long-running Cats Broadway musical so it was certain that he would take part, but Swift — who has had very little association with musicals until Cats — is a strange lyricist to pair with him. But the two get on like cats and…cats, as they chat enthusiastically about their new song “Beautiful Ghosts,” to be sung by Francesca Hayward’s Victoria.

“You can’t write a modern lyric for cats. So if you can’t get T.S. Eliot, get T.S.,” Swift joked in the above featurette. But of course, we will get a version sung by the pop star, as every big-budget movie needs a radio hit. And Swift is gunning for that EGOT.

Cats crawls into theaters on December 20, 2019.

Featuring Lloyd Webber’s iconic music and a world-class cast of dancers under the guidance of Tony-winning choreographer Andy Blankenbuehler (Hamilton, In the Heights), the film reimagines the musical for a new generation with spectacular production design, state-of-the-art technology, and dance styles ranging from classical ballet to contemporary, hip-hop to jazz, street dance to tap.

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