Universal Pictures refuses to comment on rumors of a Cats “butthole cut.” Upon its release late in 2019, the film version of Cats was supposed to mark the triumphant arrival to the big screen of the beloved Andrew Lloyd Webber Broadway musical. Instead, the movie turned out to be a disaster as it was destroyed by critics and went on to gross just $73 million worldwide on a reported budget of $95 million.
Many things must have been wrong with Cats to make it fail so stupendously, but CGI issues were certainly at the top of that list, a fact that arguably should have become obvious to producers after the effects in the first trailer led to widespread derision. In fact, a story just came out indicating exactly how crazy things got behind-the-scenes as producers and VFX artists scrambled to rework the film so its half-human/half-feline characters would not come across like freakish monsters. According to this account, a special effects person was hired specifically to work on removing "buttholes" from the movie’s actors, leading to rumors that there might exist an alternate cut of the film featuring the performers with anatomically accurate cat butts.
The internet (spurred on by Seth Rogen and Rian Johnson among others) naturally picked up these butthole cut rumors and ran with them, leading Vanity Fair to contact Universal looking for clarification. Perhaps not surprisingly, the studio refused to comment on the alleged butthole filled version of the film, only offering the sarcastic quip “Hopefully that will add to the magic and mythical nature of the cinematic treasure.” The film's effects company Mill Film also declined to comment, citing NDAs.
The legend of the Cats butthole cut actually began just days ago on Twitter, when writer Jack Waz tweeted about a “friend of a friend” in VFX who was hired to painstakingly remove the buttholes from the actors. It’s since been revealed that the buttholes were never placed on the actors intentionally but were the result of an illusion created in certain shots by the way the digital fur and skin were folded. In other words, no one involved with the film ever intended to give the cats buttholes (which certainly comes as a relief).
If nothing else, the story of the butthole cut does reveal exactly how worried producers were about the look of the cats before the movie hit theaters (Universal indeed took the drastic step of pulling the first release version from theaters and replacing it with one that sported allegedly improved effects, to no avail). Now, folks who hated Cats in its final version are calling for the butthole cut to be released, in an echo of DC fans’ endless calls to see the Snyder Cut of Justice League. However, it sounds like there is no actual butthole cut, which must come as disappointing news. But if there is somewhere a version of the film with the accidental buttholes included, maybe Universal should consider releasing it online as a coronavirus pandemic boredom relief measure. Such a gesture might actually buy them some goodwill, even if it can't save Cats from infamy.
Source: Vanity Fair