It is an understatement to say the movie Cats was an utter disappointment. It bombed at the box office and one review described it saying "many of its uncanny images are sure to haunt viewers for generations."
Well, if what one visual effects artist says about working on the film says is true, than it's entirely possible that the film could have been even weirder to watch.
The artist says that director Tom Hopper "made life hell for the visual effects artists struggling until the bitter end to figure out what he wanted."
Apparently, halfway through production, there was an uproar after a rough cut of the film showed that the visual effects applied to the actors included the cats having animated buttholes.
“We paused it,” the source said. “We went to call our supervisor, and we’re like, ‘There’s a f--king asshole in there! There’s buttholes!’ It wasn’t prominent but you saw it… And you [were] just like, ‘What the hell is that?... There’s a f--king butthole in there.’ It wasn’t in your face—but at the same time, too, if you’re looking, you’ll see it.”
The gaffe was one of many that resulted in a number of stylistic changes during the course of production that had the visual effects crew working "90-hour weeks for months."
According to Vanity Fair, an additional visual effects artist was hired "specifically to excise unintended buttholes."
After the story gained traction, people on Twitter demanded the #ButtholeCut of Cats be released immediately.
One YouTube channel even edited clips from the film to show possibly what the "Butthole Cut" could have looked like.
Photo: Universal Pictures