Exploring the notorious ‘Butthole Cut’ of the already-infamous ‘Cats’
Recruiting a director who’d already helmed a feature-length adaptation of a beloved long-running musical and steered it to massive box office success and awards season glory was a strong concept in practice. Still, it’s hard to imagine a world where Tom Hooper’s Cats turned out much worse than it did.
The filmmaker’s Les Misérables recouped its production budget almost eight times over in ticket sales, won three Academy Awards, and was nominated for a further five, including ‘Best Picture’. Based on that pedigree alone, musical theatre fans the world over were hyped beyond belief to see Andrew Lloyd Webber’s Cats given similar treatment.
A suitably star-studded cast was assembled, and the production’s memorable songs were belted out with the requisite amount of gusto, but the film itself was completely and utterly harrowing. The visual effects used to transform the ensemble into feline-like creatures were more akin to something from a horror movie than a whimsical fantasy. The sight of the distinguished Sir Ian McKellen lapping up milk is something that lingers in the memories – or the nightmares, to be more accurate – for quite some time.
It featured anthropomorphised cats with human hands, a psychedelic sequence where everyone gets high on catnip, more puns than you can shake a stick at, and many other elements of madness. Cats was almost even stranger after some poor VFX technician was forced to comb through the movie in post-production to painstakingly remove every digital anus.
That’s right, in one of its earlier forms, Cats was packed with wall-to-wall buttholes that offered anatomical accuracy of the most unnecessary degree. What began as an urban legend was ultimately confirmed by someone who worked on the film, although they did at least clarify that it wasn’t a demand.
“There was nobody that said, ‘We want buttholes,'” was how it was put to The Daily Beast. “It was one of those things that just happened and slipped through.” There were reports of Hooper putting huge pressure on the VFX team and working them to the bone, so perhaps it was a subtle measure of revenge.
“When we were looking at the playbacks, we were like, ‘What the hell? You guys see that?!’” the crew member shared of their initial reaction to the stack of sphincters. “We paused it. We went to call our supervisor, and we’re like, ‘There’s a fucking 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 fucking butthole in there.’ It wasn’t in your face, but at the same time, too, if you’re looking, you’ll see it.”
Writer Jack Waz shared that he had a friend who was tasked “to remove CGI buttholes that had been inserted a few months before,” which saw Seth Rogen demand the ‘Butthole Cut’ be released to the public. Naturally, #ReleaseTheButtholeCut became a huge trending topic on social media, but Universal has steadfastly kept its cards close to the hole.
The ‘Butthole Cut’ of Cats inarguably existed at one point in time based on first-hand accounts, and the discourse was a great deal more entertaining than anything to happen on-screen. Sadly, after losing a fortune and winning five Golden Raspberry Awards, including ‘Worst Picture’ and ‘Worst Director’, the studio wasn’t in the mood for sharing. If the company had a sense of humour, though, then it would be a hell of a way to drum up some additional revenue were it to be made public.
