UPDATE: Read the latest tweet at the bottom of the story with more information about whether or not “buttholes” were ever part of “Cats.”
In this great time of need, with people cautioned to self-isolate for days (and perhaps weeks) on end, a certain contingent of film fans has been all over social media hoping that Universal would go ahead and release “Cats” on VOD earlier than anticipated. And as if those fans needed any more fuel for their fire, a new tweet has made the rounds on social media that is making that desire to see “Cats” even more enticing. Well, a certain version of “Cats,” at least.
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After writer Ben Mekler tweeted about desperately wanting a tell-all book about the making of “Cats,” writer Jack Waz replied about a story he heard from the making of “Cats” that adds a whole new layer of intrigue and weirdness to an already-nuts movie.
He tweeted, “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”
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We’ve talked about the #ReleaseTheSnyderCut campaign, but now we have a social media movement that could unite us all—#ReleaseTheButtholeCut. What would make a two-hour film with human-feline CGI hybrids singing and dancing about the afterlife any better? Well, photorealistic buttholes, obviously.
That being said, even if we never get the “Butthole Cut” of “Cats,” if the information that Waz tweeted is accurate, then at some point, director Tom Hooper thought it was a good idea to give the characters anatomically correct anuses. And while you have to appreciate the man’s desire for realism in a film with singing and dancing felines, you also have to wonder what was going on in the minds of the VFX crew that was tasked with adding buttholes to the characters. That’s one hell of a job, huh?
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Well, regardless of the validity of the “Butthole Cut” (I’ll be disappointed if Hooper doesn’t follow in Zack Snyder’s footsteps with near-daily updates and behind-the-scenes pictures showing the cats and their sphincters), it is quite the story and adds to the mystique that is “Cats.”
UPDATE: Apparently, an anonymous “Cats” VFX person reached out to Mekler and attempted to clarify the existence of buttholes in the film: