Andrew Lloyd Webber Didn't Like 'Cats'... But Did He See 'The Butthole Version'?

The latest to pan "Cats," the much-maligned film version of the Andrew Lloyd Webber stage sensation, is Andrew Lloyd Webber.

"In an interview with the Sunday Times, Lord Lloyd-Webber said: 'The problem with the film was that Tom Hooper decided that he didn't want anybody involved in it who was involved in the original show. The whole thing was ridiculous,'" the Daily Mail reports.

"How about what can only be called filmdom's answer to Donald Trump's recent WTF moment about ingesting cleaning products to battle coronavirus," wrote Deadline in April when assessing the box office performances of 2019 films. The website reported the film grossed $27.2 million in the United States and Canada, and $47.4 million in other territories, for a worldwide total of $74.6 million, against a production budget of about $95 million.

The reviews were devastating. "Attention, moviegoers searching for the worst movie of the year: We have a late-breaking winner," wrote Peter Travers in Rolling Stone. "'Cats' slips in right under the radar and easily scores as the bottom of the 2019 barrel – and arguably of the decade." At the New York Times, Manohla Dargis said the film failed because it lacked the personal touch between the actors and the audience which was so crucial to the musical's success. "All that's left are canned images of fit-looking people meowing and raising their rumps high in the air."

"'Cats' also swept the Razzies, winning Worst Picture, Worst Supporting Actor and Actress (James Corden and Rebel Wilson, respectively), Worst On Screen Combo, Worst Screenplay and Worst Director," reported Deadline.

"Critics primarily focused on the film's curious special effects when filing universally damning notices. Audiences largely steered clear and some of the cast – which included Judi Dench, Idris Elba, Taylor Swift and Ian McKellen – disowned the finished product," wrote The Guardian.

The British paper also added this: "Rumours recently surfaced of an early version of the film, nicknamed the 'Butthole Cut,' in which unfortunately placed holes appeared on the human-cat hybrids. These were later redacted."

In March Seth Rogan cited a tweet in which a FX specialist told him of the existence of an early cut of the film in which buttholes can be seen, and demanded: "Release the Butthole Cut of Cats!!"

Wrote Vanity Fair in April: "The source's remarks mirror earlier comments from an anonymous Cats crew member, who told writer Ben Mekler that the "butthole" cut was an unintentional byproduct of the film's unique visual effects. The film's initial VFX process, the crew member said, made the cats of Cats look like their skin and fur had been "groomed or just folded in a way that really REALLY looked like very furry lady genitals and buttholes by accident."