Idris Elba in talks to join Taylor Swift, Jennifer Hudson in movie adaptation of 'Cats'

Actor Idris Elba is in negotiations to join the voice cast of Cats, the film adaptation of Andrew Lloyd Webber's beloved musical.

Oscar-winning director Tom Hooper will helm the project which is expected to start shooting in England next month, reported Deadline.

If the deal gets finalised, the 46-year-old actor will join Taylor Swift, Jennifer Hudson, James Corden and Ian McKellen in the cast.

Lee Hall will adapt the screenplay for the musical, which Lloyd Webber based on TS Eliot's children's poems.

The film will follow the story of a tribe of cats called the Jellicles and the night they make what is known as "the Jellicle choice" and decide which cat will ascend to the Heaviside Layer and come back to a new life.

Hudson, who won an Oscar in 2007 for her role in Dreamgirls, will take on the role of Grizabella, a former "glamour cat" ostracised by the Jellicles, while McKellan will play Old Deuteronomy, the elderly Jellicle Leader.

Swift will portray Bombalurina, a flirtatious red cat.

The stage version of the musical is the fourth-longest-running show in Broadway history and the sixth-longest-running in London's West End.