It’s rare that a movie becomes iconized as a potential “so bad its good” classic right when it’s release, but Cats was able to pull off that feat. Even with dreadful reviews (20 rating on Rotten Tomatoes) and an abysmal box office performance (earned a mere 27 million domestically on a 90 million dollar budget), the film drew significant attention due to its bizarre CGI and tonally-confused setup. Stars like Seth Rogen are live-Tweeting their (baked) experience watching the film, with the project becoming a long-standing pop culture story despite its failures. Now, fans are demanding to see an apparent cut of the project that displays the cat character’s buttholes.
In a news story only this bizarre film could deliver, but here we are. Writer Jeff Waz tweeted about a friend who had worked on the film, assigned the VFX task of editing out all the cat buttholes. Here’s his reveal along with the reactions of many fans:
“A VFX producer friend of a friend was hired in November to finish some of the 400 effects shots in @catsmovie. His entire job was to remove CGI buttholes that had been inserted a few months before. Which means that, somewhere out there, there exists a butthole cut of Cats.”
https://twitter.com/jackwaz/status/1240135051288948742
https://twitter.com/TheDeducers/status/1240262756110139392
But that also means that a conversation was had about both putting the buttholes in and removing them and to be a fly on that wall.
— Lil' Elton John (@chloeeeugh) March 18, 2020
The internet continues to have fun at this film’s expense, but I do feel bad for the VFX artists that had to work on this. It’s clear from watching the film that director Tom Hooper’s indecisive behavior effected much of the project. Whether it’s switching up ideas midway through production or not having a consistent tonal approach, Hooper clearly wasn’t the right guy for the project, but it seems most people would blame the VFX team over him. I hope the team working on this get their due, as they made the most out of a poor situation.
Do you think Cats is a “so bad its good” classic? Let us know in the comments!