An anonymous source on the VFX crew for Cats confirmed the existence of the "Butthole Cut" and provided insight into the film's arduous working conditions. Cats was infamous long before it ever debuted its trailer with rumors of its bizarre cat hybrid characters building up anticipation for the movie to come. Fans were not disappointed as the film's trailers and eventual release provided more than enough nightmare fuel to scratch the "so-bad-it's-good" itch the movie was expected to.
Despite attempts to Cats fan-edit that sought to re-add the buttholes into the film.
Speaking with The Daily Beast, a VFX artist on the movie verified that an effort to erase the buttholes took place and was part of an overall miserable experience for the crew under the leadership of director Tom Hooper. The source confirmed that the buttholes were not ever an intentional design choice, saying, "It wasn’t prominent but you saw it… And you [were] just like, 'What the hell is that?... There's a f-cking butthole in there.' It wasn't in your face—but at the same time, too, if you’re looking, you’ll see it."
The source went on to reveal how correcting this only added to what was already an impossible task, describing the working conditions as "'almost slavery,' and recalled working 90-hour weeks for months. Some colleagues, they recalled, stayed in the office for two or three days at a time, sleeping under their desks." Those dire conditions apparently paled in comparison to the team's treatment from Hooper who often berated the crew over email and generally had little idea what went into an animated feature. He reportedly demanded that the movie scene be fully rendered before he ever saw the footage, which was an enormous waste of time for the crew who simply needed his approval on the unrendered movements of the characters. Hooper also reportedly demanded to see videos of actual cats performing the same movements, which was difficult, to say the least, because "as you know, cats don't dance."
As morbidly enjoyable an experience as Cats is to sit through, it seems like creating it was genuinely terrible for the animators. It's hard to level any blame at them for the final product, despite Rebel Wilson and James Corden's assertions to the contrary, as the team apparently took six months to create the film's two-minute trailer and only four months to finish the rest of the movie. The buttholes may have been accidental, but it seems like they were the least of the VFX artists' problems during the animation of Cats.
Source: The Daily Beast
