Cats director Tom Hooper says he just finished the movie earlier this week

There's no denying it: Cats is one of the most highly anticipated movies of the year.

And while the star-studded musical film had its premiere in New York City on Monday night, director Tom Hooper told Variety he had completely finished the film just hours before. He told Variety that he was "very happy" to be at the premiere with the film "fully finished." "I finished it at 8am yesterday after 36 hours in a row, putting finishing touches on it," he said. "So I'm very happy to be here with it fully finished." He also explained that things had "come along way" since the release of that first trailer over the summer. "I'll let the audience decide, but I think we've come a long way since that first trailer," he continued. "A premiere should be the first time people get to see it, and this is genuinely a premiere." Following the backlash to the trailer over the summer, Hooper told Empire last month how he thought the fans' reaction was "entertaining". “I was just so fascinated because I didn’t think it was controversial at all,” he admitted. “So it was quite entertaining. Cats was apparently the number-one trending topic in the world, for a good few hours at least.” “We’d only finished shooting in March, so all the visual effects [in the trailer] were at quite an early stage,” he added. “When you watch the finished film, you’ll see that some of the designs of the cats have moved on since then, and certainly our understanding of how to use the technology to make them work has gone up, too.”

• Cats is due to hit Irish cinemas on Friday, December 20.