The Big Flop - ENCORE - Cats The Movie: Even Taylor Swift Couldn't Save It with Jackie Zebrowski & Sarah Cooper

Episode Date: December 4, 2023

The 2019 movie adaptation of Cats had all the makings of a huge hit: a beloved Broadway musical, an award-winning director, and a star-studded cast including: Taylor Swift, Idris Elba, and Dame Judi Dench! Instead, it crapped the (litter) box office. Find out how a race to the Oscars pushed the visual effects team to their limits, creating a total CAT-tastrophe complete with accidental animated feline buttholes. On this episode of The Big Flop, comedians Jackie Zebrowski (Page 7) and Sarah Cooper (Foolish: Tales of Assimilation, Determination, and Humiliation) join Misha to dissect one of biggest movie flops in recent memory. It’s a purrfect tale of what NOT to do!Follow The Big Flop on the Wondery app or wherever you get your podcasts. You can listen to The Big Flop early and ad-free on Wondery+. Join Wondery+ in the Wondery app or on Apple Podcasts.See Privacy Policy at https://art19.com/privacy and California Privacy Notice at https://art19.com/privacy#do-not-sell-my-info.

Wondery Plus subscribers can listen to The Big Flop early and ad-free. Join Wondery Plus in the Wondery app or on Apple Podcasts. It's early 2020 and it's Oscars night. Taking the stage is James Corden dressed as a cat in a tuxedo and top hat. Alongside him is Rebel Wilson wearing a ginger furry number with gold stilettos. Corden waves, Wilson swings her tail and winks. As cast members of the Motion Picture Cats. Nobody more than us understands the importance

of good visual effects. Wilson gives a sort of snarl. Corden just glares. Down in the audience, Antonio Banderas is hysterically laughing, wiping tears from his eyes. Cats had everything going for it.

It was the film adaptation of one of the most successful musicals in Broadway history. It had a star-studded cast, an acclaimed director. It had Taylor Swift. It should have been winning Oscars, but instead, its own stars are openly mocking it. Why, you ask? Because every frame of its hour and 50-minute runtime is an uncanny valley of monstrosity. It's official. The Cats movie is a cat-tastrophe. It's reminiscent of video game graphics from a decade ago. The world got to see James Corden as a fat pussy. He was also in the movie Cats, but no one saw that. Lord Webber pulled no punches about the movie, saying,

I saw it and I just thought, oh God, no. We are on a sinking ship. lot, and I just thought, oh God, no. From Wondery and Atwell Media, this is The Big Flop, where we chronicle the greatest flubs, fails, and blunders of all time. I'm your host, Misha Brown, social media superstar and aspiring cat daddy at Don't Cross a Gay Man. And today we're talking Cats, the 2019 movie musical. Hello, I'm Emily and I'm one of the hosts of Terribly Famous, the show that takes you inside the lives of our biggest celebrities. And they don't get much bigger than the man who made badminton sexy. OK, maybe that's a stretch, but if I say pop star and shuttlecocks,

you know who I'm talking about. No? Short shorts? Free cocktails? Careless whispers? Okay, last one. It's not Andrew Ridgely. Yep, that's right.

It's Stone Cold icon George Michael. From teen pop sensation to one of the biggest solo artists on the planet, join us for our new series, George Michael's Fight for Freedom. From the outside, it looks like he has it all. But behind the trademark dark sunglasses is a man in turmoil. George is trapped in a lie of his own making, with a secret he feels would ruin him if the truth ever came out. Follow Terribly Famous wherever you listen to your podcasts,

or listen early and ad-free on Wanderie Plus on Apple Podcasts or the Wondery app. Here to help me tell the tale of the furry flop that is cats are comedian and author of the memoir Foolish Tales of Assimilation, Determination, and Humiliation, Sarah Cooper. Hello. And comedian and co-host of the podcast, Page 7, Jackie Zebrowski. Hello. Welcome to the show. Yay! Thank you so much for having us.

Jackie, on your podcast, you once did an episode about the movie Cats. Correct. And one of the many fun conclusions that you came to was the need to create a Rocky Horror Picture Show version of Cats, which I think it's a really good idea. Did that ever happen? Has anything come about from that idea? We are currently on tour with a show called Release the Butthole Cut, which is about cats. And we can't show the entire movie because of movie rights and how expensive that would be. But we do show many clips of it and talk our way through the movie Cats.

So Sarah, I heard that you have actually just watched the Cats movie? Just finished it. Started it last night. I got through about 20, 30 minutes. I got up to James Corden like in the trash. And I was like, this is a night. I got through about 20, 30 minutes. I got up to James Corden in the trash. And I was like, this is a lot. I understand. And so then I finished it this morning. So the trauma is fresh. The trauma is fresh. And I swear to you, I'm a positive person. And I don't

like crapping on things, especially art. Because if people are trying to make art, I was horrified. I knew that I heard rumors about it being bad, but I had no idea. Well, Cats as a show has not always been, you know, a flop. So this is really the tale of hubris, a studio and a director biting off more than they could chew and faster than they could chew it. Yes. But let's start at the beginning. Let's go to the birth of the musical.

it. Yes. But let's start at the beginning. Let's go to the birth of the musical. It's the late 70s. A cat lover named Andrew Lloyd Webber is bored one day during the tech rehearsals of a little musical he has cooking up called Evita. Ever heard of it? Heard of it. Yes. Don't cry for me, Argentina. Oh, yes. Love it. Madonna's biggest role. Madonna's biggest role. So at the time, Lloyd Webber is a musical powerhouse. Some of the massive hits he's already written include Jesus Christ Superstar and Joseph and the Amazing Technicolor Dreamcoat. He will go on to make Phantom of the Opera and School of Rock. But maybe most important to know is he will become one day one of only 18 people to have reached EGOT status. Which is pretty cool for listeners who don't know.

EGOT means he's won an Emmy, Grammy, Oscar, and Tony, all of the major awards. Though by this point in the late 70s, he's only been nominated. So are you fans of any of his other works? I love the movie Evita. I never saw it in the Broadway. In the Broadway, that's the right way to say that. I'm pretty sure. I don't want to judge him just on Cats, though,

so I should probably look at some other stuff. You definitely should. Although Cats as a musical itself is beautiful. It is, you know, a dancing piece of art. Not the movie, the musical. No, but even watch, okay, I haven't seen the musical, but watching the movie, I still don't understand how this is a good musical. Oh, you'll never understand it.

Okay. Also, as a goth girl and a theater kid, 100%, I'm a huge Phantom fan. And of course, love an Andrew Lloyd Webber. I mean, how could I not? Exactly. So, well, Andrew Lloyd Webber, he had just had a little breakup with his usual lyricist, and he's hankering to try something new, maybe without a lyricist this time. Sidebar, that lyricist I'm referencing is his writing buddy, Sir Tim Rice, who I've actually worked with a handful of times, so I know his side of the story very well. Awesome. So, I'm very excited to get into this one.

So Lloyd Webber, he remembers an old book of poems by the poet T.S. Eliot that his mother used to read to him as a kid. And it's a book called Old Possum's Book of Practical Cats, which I think is so cute and like old timey. Yes. It's like, how do you say you're gay without saying you're gay?

Like that was how you did it back then. You wrote a book about cats and I started to read these poems and they're adorable. They're so adorable. He agrees and he hits up T.S. Eliot's widow, Valerie Eliot, about adapting the book into a stage musical.

But to be clear, this wasn't the first attempt that someone tried to adapt this book. In the 1940s, Walt Disney himself tried to get the rights from T.S. Eliot, but Eliot said no because he was worried the resulting film would be too pretty. Whoa. Which, not to get too far ahead of ourselves, but it's the classic case of be careful what you wish for. Yeah. So, Eliot's widow, Valerie, likes the idea of a musical made up of her late

husband's poetry, and she gives Lloyd Webber the okay. Now, for those of you who don't know, let's give a little overview of what Cats is about. And yes, you did hear air quotes in my voice around about. Good luck. No idea. So, okay, Jackie, do you want to take a stab at describing the plot of the musical? Essentially, there's this idea called the Heaviside Lair, which is two cats, an afterlife, like an ecstasy they are looking to achieve and they're all coming together to try to choose which cat do we send to the heavy side layer that will ascend to the next leveliside lair next by essentially explaining their life and pitching themselves of like, I should be the one that goes in the hot air balloon while we're singing about cats not being a dog. I'm sorry. Are you having flashbacks? I'm having flashbacks to the last scene and like that being the piece de resistance of this movie, and I could not believe it. I could not believe it. Sarah, I think what you're feeling is

the plot of Cats is basically there is no plot. Thank you. It's just a bunch of cats who introduce themselves one by one. Literally. This includes names like Jelly Lorum and Rum Tum Tugger. On the night of what's called the Jellicle Ball, they all hope that a cat named Old Deuteronomy will choose them to ascend to the Heaviside Layer where they'll begin their next life.

What is a Jellicle? I still don't know. Jellicle cats are Jellicle cats and Jellicle cats are cats that are Jellicle. That's the whole movie. The whole movie is, I'm a cat and I'm a cat and I'm a cat with a hat on and I'm a cat that likes eating. And it's like, oh my gosh.

It's so crazy. You knew that song by heart only watching it one time. So if it sounds to you like they are all asking to die, it's because that's exactly what's happening. But just don't think too much about it. I was asking to die while I was watching.

So even though Andrew Lloyd Webber was highly acclaimed at that time, Cats was a hard sell. Like nobody wants to buy this plotless show about suicidal cats. So he takes out ads in a paper looking for funding. And in one pitch meeting, a director falls asleep. Wow. But Lloyd Webber, he really believes in his vision. And he takes out a second mortgage on his home to make it happen. Wow.

That is dedication. Right. Why was he so hellbent on making cats? I know why. Why? The one song. Memory is dedication. Right. Why was he so hell-bent on making Cats? I know why. Why? The one song. Memory! Exactly. It's a gorgeous song. I literally think that's the only reason this thing has any life whatsoever, is that one song.

Lloyd Webber eventually does get some investors to make his dream come true. Cats premieres on May 11th, 1981, and the audiences go wild. Not only that, it completely changed the theater world. It sells out show after show on the West End in London, and eventually it goes to Broadway and it sells out those shows as well. The phrase, it's better than Cats, enters their vernacular as shorthand for something that's like really, really good. It's like Cats is the new sliced bread. Yes. Fun fact, the Cats t-shirt was the most popular shirt in the 80s, second only to the Hard Rock Cafe shirt.

Wow. So it was a cultural phenomenon. They even used the musical in a seatbelt PSA from the 1980s, you know, back when we had to encourage the public to use actual seatbelts. I remember that. Yes. Yes. Well, luckily for you, we have a little clip so we can all relive it. Cats have nine lives, children only one. Help them live that life. Buckle them into a car seat. No one wants a child to become a memory.

to become a memory. Memory all alone in the moonlight. Oh my god. All alone in the moonlight. No one wants your child to become a memory is

an amazing line. The commercial, again, all centered around the song Memory. And let's be real, the song is all centered around the song Memory. And let's be real, the song is iconic. And the song Memory actually became every diva's go-to power ballad. Oh, yeah. It's been played millions of times on the US radio and television stations. In the end, Cats becomes the fifth longest running Broadway musical of all time.

Insane. The reason that we gave you the backstory on the bonkers success of Cats is it brings us to the even more bonkers, unforgettable fail of the 2019 Cats movie. Nice. Thank you. Because if Cats the Stage Musical was a huge success that should have been a failure,

the movie was a huge failure that had every reason to be a success. So let's leap ahead to the year of our cat lord, aka Old Deuteronomy 2018. So Universal Studios is hankering for another holiday season hit because just a few years earlier, Les Mis earned them over $400 million worldwide and got them eight Oscar nominations and three wins. Oh, wow. The director was Tom Hooper, and they'd had a star-studded cast, including Hugh Jackman, Anne Hathaway, and Russell Crowe.

Did you see Les Mis? I just love that musical so much. It's my favorite one. And I just couldn't watch the movie. Well, they give the director job to Tom Hooper, and they give him a massive budget of around $100 million. Oh, my God. So he's being set up for success.

I could make a movie with $100 million. You could make a movie with a million dollars. Yes. So Tom Hooper saw Cats when he was eight years old, and he told The Atlantic he wanted to do this project because, quote, I really enjoyed the sense of going through the portal and being told we cats don't give a shit about you, but on this special night, we're going to let you in on the secret, end quote. So he partners up with Lee Hall, who did the script for Billy Elliot. The first challenge, as discussed, is there really isn't a story. But Hooper and Hall managed to piece together a thin little bit of plot. They frame the story

through the eyes of Victoria, a cat who's abandoned by her owner and thrown into an alleyway with the jellicle cats. So we've talked a lot about the lack of plot. I think this is a good idea that they were trying to create something of substance for the movie, right? Right. It does make sense, unless it doesn't make sense in the movie, because they don't follow through. They just like sprinkle a little plot up top, expect that that's enough nip for you. And I just like, it's not enough catnip. We're going to be getting through. We need more plot. Like, I need it sprinkled throughout. You can't just sprinkle it at the top

and then not continue. Give her no backstory. Give her no, like, we don't know anything about this cat. We don't care about this cat. Sorry, I feel very strongly about this movie. One of Hooper's first hires is a little-known singer-songwriter. You might know her by the name of Taylor Swift. Yeah, by the way, she failed her Les Mis screen test, so this role was actually a big win for her.

Whoa! Yeah, and from there, he builds out an all-star cast. I mean, Idris Elba, Jennifer Hudson, James Corden, Rebel Wilson, Sir Ian McKellen, and, of course, Dame Judy Dench, who, BTW, was supposed to be in the original production of Cats, but had to drop out because of an injury. This is really

just turning into a redemption story for everyone. Oh my god! It could have been. I mean, Idris in that full bodysuit, that shot of him, I think made it worth it it because he looked amazing. Because you could see his muscles through his cat skin. Oh, you could see his whole body.

Oh, yeah. I would watch a whole movie just with that. And as if your theater nerd friends could not be any more excited, they announced in November that the choreography will be done by none other than Andy Blankenbuehler, who did the choreography for Hamilton. Andy Blankenbuehler. Never heard that name, but I like saying it. Andy Blankenbuehler. Sounds like you're cursing in the middle of it. So, I mean, at this point, it's all pretty promising. I mean, do you remember the buzz around this movie? This is pre-trailer. Do you remember, like, when it was announced? Oh, yes. Absolutely. I remember Francesca Hayward being cast. Yes. The person playing Victoria, she's literally a famous ballet dancer on the Royal Ballet. And she had this huge,

like, you know, you saw the card in the trailer, like introducing Francesca Hayward. And I just thought this is going to be her big moment. I was really excited for her. Yeah. Well, especially you give us theater kids a little bone and we just go gaga over it. Wild. All like these people coming together. And like you said, the redemption story, it was so exciting. I was personally excited about it. I was like, they're going to finally do Cats. Yeah. Like as a professional musical theater performer, my world was filled with people just screaming at the top of their lungs how excited they were to hear Jennifer Hudson belt out memory on the screen. So Cats fans everywhere were losing their minds for the anticipation of this movie. And with a cast like this, what could possibly go wrong?

Everything. Pretty much everything. And I also know that when people say what could go wrong, that is the ticket to hell. Well, Hooper had big plans for the film. of live action and animation using motion capture, CGI, but also taking place on practical sets that are scaled to make humans seem like the size of cats. Now, there are several problems with this, and those problems are deadlines. They want this movie to be out for Christmas, which means they have about a year to finish. Ha! Yeah. Just for reference, the Avatar sequel, a movie almost entirely made of CGI,

took 12 years. Yeah. Yeah, some of that time was because they needed to invent new technology. Oh, I think he thinks he can do it. You know men. Like, they're just like, oh, we got this.

It'll be no problem. Plus, we did Les Mis. Plus, it's got all these stars in it. It'll be great. I really feel like they thought it was going to be no big deal. Especially with $100 million, I feel like they probably thought like, well, money talks. And if we just keep throwing money at the problem, I'm sure that this will all get done too, which is not always the case. It doesn't even matter what we do. Taylor Swift is in it. That's probably what they said. The problem is they also wanted to have a trailer available the same weekend that Disney releases their live-action Lion King movie, which means a trailer needs to be ready just seven months after they start shooting. This bites them in the ass.

So while they're in production, they have everyone attend what's called cat school. For 12 weeks, they're getting lessons in how to walk. I can't. Talk. I can't. And move like a cat. Didn't you get that from the movie, Sarah? Didn't you see all of the cat schooling that they went through?

Oh my gosh. What did this look like? Was it cat school? Lesson one, perfecting your meow. Yeah. Like it's all fun and games until you get to the litter box lesson. Oh, my God. Do you think they were using litter boxes on set?

Like, they had to stay in character, so they would just go over into their little box. And we wonder why there's a SAG-AFTRA strike. Oh, my God. The shoot begins in December of 2018, and by all accounts, it goes fairly smoothly. Everyone in the cast seemed really impressed with everyone else. The celebrities are gracious and hardworking. Everyone's in awe of Judi Dench, of course. And the actors are amazed by the sets.

The only thing they're a little unclear on is how it'll all wind up looking on the big screen. Here's Jennifer Hudson talking about that on the show Extra Butter. Having to trust and use our imaginations, I think, was the thing that made it so different and interesting at the same time. Because it's because it's like for Grizabella, she had a tail and a coat, you know, but then it's like, okay, now you have to use your imagination and to add everything else that will be added later, you know, or being on a magnified set and imagining ourselves as cats and becoming that. I think it's the most different project I've ever done.

The clearing of the throat. Yes. And this project was so different. I had a tail and I had a coat and then the set and amazing. I'm so excited. It was such a regal response. She's such a queen. Like she knows exactly how to say it in a way that wasn't just like, this was absolute bat crap. That's exactly what this was.

Well, I think she put her all into what she did. You know, she really like put everything into it. I mean, but the thing is, is that's the other thing is that each cat had one moment. And when you have one big moment, those moments over and over again. Yeah, yeah. There's no peaks and valleys. It doesn't give you a chance to like rest and then be excited again. Right. She still killed memory.

She sure did. She leaves me all alone with the memory of my days in the sun. So at some point during the shoot, post-production begins with two visual effects houses, MPC and Mill Film, and problems start almost right away. So first, here's a little explainer from a VFX artist who goes by at knowtherobot on TikTok. The way that VFX companies get work is that Marvel and Warner Brothers and other studios will approach VFX companies and say, I have 2,000 shots that I need for this sequence. And the VFX studios will place a bid based on that quantity of shots. But here's the catch. The amount of work per shot varies dramatically. So one shot could have a wire removal. Another shot could have wire removal, smoke sim, fire sim, face replacement, green screen.

Despite the difference in workload between those two shots, they both are considered just one shot each. Because of this, VFX artists are forced to work relentless hours, overtime almost every day, including weekends. Yikes. Yeah. I would love to have an interview with one of those VFX artists. They probably would have a lot to say.

Yeah. Yeah. So let's unpack what he just described. So basically, we'll live action, you want animation, you want a fully like green screened background, but not having to explain any of that and just being like, just like give me a ballpark of what you want. Don't look at anything. You don't need to know what needs to be done. That is such an underhanded, like sneaky way of going about business. Totally. Do you know how hard it is to animate hair? I mean, I'm pretty sure they did. And they basically only got eight months with all of the footage,

not to mention this trailer they're supposed to deliver well before that. And there is another problem in all this. Hooper may have experience delivering an Oscar-winning Christmastime musical from Les Mis, but one thing he does not seem to have experience with is visual effects or animation or motion capture. So when he rolls into post-production, there are problems right away because he didn't

account for what the VFX artists would need. Why didn't he ask any questions? So by all accounts, working on post for Cats is miserable. They're working 90-hour weeks. They keep having to do all of this extra work because Hooper isn't used to the process. So let me explain. Usually, when special effects artists show a director a scene, they'll show them unrendered footage without all the graphics so that they can save time. Which, remember, the VFX teams do not have much of. Right. But if they try to show Hooper unrendered footage, aka the actors without their CGI cat fur, he thinks it's just garbage. Mm-hmm.

One of the VFX crew members told the Daily Beast that Hooper was horrible toward employees. He was probably just feeling really insecure because, you know, he had no experience with any of this. And so he didn't even know what he was looking at. Yeah. So what does he do? He takes it out on the poor people that have to work 90 hours a week to have to try and fix his mess. Exactly. But have you ever been in charge, but you didn't know what you were doing? Imposter syndrome's real, but with a hundred million dollar budget and people then working 90 hour weeks. So remember that trailer they want in time for the Lion King release? Well, first they want to show it at CinemaCon in April, but it's

just not possible with this VFX crunch. So they decide to have the chairman of Universal tell the audience that because of the complex graphics, they don't have a trailer yet, but they have a very special behind the scenes featurette to share instead. Featurette. I love that name. Featurette. Yeah, me too. Well, it featurettes interviews with cast and crew, and let me tell you, they are hyping up the VFX, which I must remind you, they still have never seen. Here's James Corden trying his best to earn that paycheck. Have a listen. Tom's pairing them with a kind of level of technology which I don't think has ever been used before.

We've used digital fur technology to create the most perfect covering of fur. These are people, but they're cats, and this is kind of blowing my mind. These are people, but they're cats, but they're cats, but they're also people. You know, it's a level of people and cats that the world has ever seen before.

He has no idea. He just made up a bunch of nonsense. Apparently, digital fur technology means they are going to use CGI and motion capture technology to cover the actors in hair and give them more feline features, which we know wasn't 100% accurate. Oh, you mean just scrape off their face and kind of paste it halfway onto the heads of the cats? But on the whole, the teaser leaves you feeling pretty jazzed for the full trailer to drop. So, three months later, the trailer drops in time for summer blockbuster season, July 18th, 2019. Now I'm going to play this trailer and let's describe what we're seeing as we see it. Okay. So feel free to talk over the sound, give a play by play for our listeners,

because it is a visual feast. So here we go. Oh no! Her two big features on her two small head! She has this look on her face the whole time, I swear. She's shocked that she's like, am I a human-sized cat or am I a cat-sized cat? You don't even want a plot. You're watching this, you're like,

I don't even care if there's a plot. And then you watch the movie and you're like, where's the plot? Because of all the CGI, you don't even know a plot. You're watching this, you're like, I don't even care if there's a plot. And then you watch the movie and you're like, where's the plot? Because of all the CGI, you don't even know what's dancing and what's CGI. The dancing is cool, but you're so taken out of it from the fact that their feet don't ever touch the ground. Or some of them are wearing sneakers. Yes. Why is a cat wearing sneakers? Yes, and why are they wearing clothes in some scenes and no clothes in other scenes?

So does that mean they're supposed to be naked when they're not wearing clothes? Or are they supposed to wear clothes or not supposed to wear clothes? I love the passion. You also notice, like, they don't have cat hands or anything like that. But, like, well, they got those tails done. And, well, they have ears on their heads. And, like, I feel like they just had to like pick and choose what can we get away with that makes them look enough like cats that

we can finish that we can continue on with this movie because their hands took me out of it all the time like most of them didn't even have fur on their hands there's actually one part where he I think the magician one he said paw over paw as he's putting his hands over his other hand. I'm like, we can all see their hands. It's not a paw. Now, we all know that sensitive souls should never read comments like ever, and especially not on sites like YouTube, where this trailer was posted. But we obviously had to. So we're going to play a little game now called Can You Tell Which Comments Are Real And Which Are Fake? game now called Can You Tell Which Comments Are Real and Which Are Fake?

I'll read them out loud and then pause for you to decide real or fake. Okay. So this one, this first one is from at Saul Goodman 8893, who wrote, Masterpiece, best horror that will come out this year. I think that's real. Yeah, real. For sure. Yeah, that one's real. Second one, at nomorekitties. This trailer upset me so much that I gave my cat to my cousin. Oh, wow.

I'm going to guess fake because it's almost not scathing enough. Yeah, fake. Yeah, we made that one up. You guys are nice. Yeah. Here's one. At Nylak5694, therapist, where did your fear of cats start? Patient, well.

Real. Real for sure. Yeah, real. That's real. Okay. Almost everyone seemed to agree that the main problem isn't the quality of the effects, though some of those are questionable. It's the overall vision of how the cats look,

the weird mashup of human and cat that Hooper created. So yes, he wanted celebrities. Yes, he wanted cat realism. But the combined effect of both is somehow not cat enough and not human enough. It's viscerally upsetting to me. Yes. It should have been practical outfits.

I don't understand why they didn't make practical cat outfits and then make the rest of it all green screen. That doesn't make any sense. Exactly. So Hooper's like, okay, back to the editing room we go. And this is where things go from bad to worse for the VFX team. Impossible. With only months to go before the movie's premiere, Hooper is now asking them to redesign characters.

No. Oh my God. So the VFX teams are spending multiple days in a row without leaving the studio, literally sleeping under their desks. Oh my gosh. There's even a low point where they realize that some of the digital fur on the actors' backsides look like buttholes.

And they go through and, well, wipe them from the screen. So in March 2020, there was also a rumor that surfaced that there was another cut of the film where the cats all originally had very visible, intentional CGI buttholes. Yes. But it's likely that all of the buttholes were accidental. Snopes rates this rumor as unproven. I will believe it until my dying day. I want to see the butthole cut version of this. I think that there was a part of them that were like, they're cats. What, do they not have buttholes?

They definitely have buttholes. All right. Well, so we've had some fun, but here's a little cinema lesson. There is a phrase in post-production known as picture lock, which is when the edits are done and the editors can shift their focus to coloring, scoring, and sound design, which should probably be extra important for a musical, right? Yes! Well, let's take a little listen to an interview with Tom Hooper on the red carpet before the big premiere on December 20th, talking to Extra TV.

So what are you looking forward to tonight, seeing the final product? Seeing it finished, because I finished this film at 8 a.m. yesterday morning in London after 36 hours without sleep. So this will be the first time that I show a completely finished film to an audience. So to see it finished will be, like, very cool. Oh, my. That is the sound of a shaken, confidence man. He knows it's not done. There's nothing he can do about it. I don't know what that was like in that theater,

watching that for the first time, but that must have been a palpable feeling. This is a chaotic kind of energy that I live for. I love this. But the movie comes out and media reviews are brutal. There are so many bad reviews to choose from. But here are a couple that really get to the core of all the problems. The Daily Beast wrote, quote, The thing isn't even campy, goofy, fun. It's inexplicably joyless and morose. Whoa.

Yeah. Wow. Oh, it's kind of campy, goofy, fun.. Whoa! Yeah. Wow. Oh, it's kind of campy, goofy, fun. Come on! Yeah, I don't think that's completely fair, but The Guardian wrote, as they gaze at the green screen and sashay and crawl,

it's weird to behold them all gurning and acting. And why do so many resemble Darth Maul? Ha ha ha! Ha ha ha! Ha ha ha! and acting. And why do so many resemble Darth Maul? They ain't wrong. No. So obviously, it wasn't just the digital fur that made this movie a mess. The plot or lack thereof didn't help, which is interesting because the lack of plot didn't really matter for the stage play. In fact, some say that's part of why it was such a hit with kids and tourists. But the thin plot definitely made it a hard movie to watch.

Were either you clamoring or clawing to go see it on opening weekend? Oh, no. My whole family went on Christmas Day to see Cats. Oh, wow. Because we were excited to see what a train wreck it was going to be. So we were laughing through so much of the movie, and the entire time, my mom just kept going, why, it's Cats, it's good.

Why are you laughing at it? This is good. If you didn't understand why we were laughing so much, we did get yelled at by an old woman afterwards. She said, you should be ashamed of yourself. Oh my God. So we're like, all right. Okay.

I'm sorry you loved this movie. Well, Universal anticipated $15 million in opening weekend ticket sales and the movie fell flat that weekend with less than half at $6.5 million. Oh, at Christmastime, too. At Christmastime, too. Ultimately, Deadline Hollywood estimated the movie lost at least $70 million.

Ooh! Yeah. That hurts! That's America for you, man. But our friend, Andrew Lloyd Webber, who originated the musical and is the reason why we have this glorious flop to behold, was one of the people who did watch the film. And he said, quote, I saw it and I just thought, oh God, no.

It was my first time in my 70-odd years on this planet that I went out and bought a dog. It's such a catty thing to say. As if all this wasn't embarrassing enough, Universal has to send updated versions to theaters with corrected VFX mistakes after the movie comes out. My God. For example, some of the cats have fur on their hands, which are more cat-like, whereas other characters didn't. And there are shots where you can see

Judi Dench's real-life wedding ring on her hand. There was also scenes where a character's feet didn't even touch the ground. But honestly, the wedding ring doesn't seem like the biggest problem this movie had. Because if you're noticing that, then there are many other problems in the movie, right? Like if I'm watching the dancing and I'm noticing the feet aren't touching the ground, there's something wrong with the movie.

So the months go by and Universal quietly pulls Cats from its For Your Consideration page. So part of the reason they were rushing this in the first place was to make Oscars deadlines, and they just effectively pulled it from the race. Oh, I wonder why. So as always, the flop isn't the end of the story. So let's see what Hooper has been doing and do a little Where Are They Now.

So in terms of Hooper, it looks like he's pussyfooting around because he hasn't directed anything since that film's release in 2019. Oh, wow. At least according to his IMDb profile. And according to GQ magazine, the VFX studio MPC closed their Vancouver office right after the film's release. And that's where apparently dozens of junior visual effects artists had been working on Cats. Oh, no. It's not their fault.

Yeah. They didn't have enough time. Yeah. But all that being said, here at The Big Flop, we do like to be positive, supportive people. So let's do some silver linings. positive, supportive people. So let's do some silver linings. So the one original song created for the movie

Beautiful Ghosts by Andrew Lloyd Webber and Taylor Swift did get a Golden Globe nomination and was the film's only nomination. Nice. So good for them.

I just can't believe it though because I know this is the positive side of this, but that song was boring. It was a boring song. The Beautiful ghost, like that's the part that I almost fell asleep. I was like, all right, get past this song. I think my food arrived during that song, so I think I might have missed it. Another silver lining, I think another good thing about it is that it's a very short title. So searching for it on my remote was very easy.

I love that. Very easy. That's a positive. Also, which we have mentioned, we did get to see Idris Elba essentially naked. So that was cool. Especially because they edited out Jason Derulo's the size of his package. Because it apparently was so large and so visible that they showed it in a screening and they had to edit that out. But don't worry, they got that taken care of.

Well, that's the cut I want to see. Yeah. That's the cut I want to see. Jason Derulo. That was really good. So now that you've heard the behind-the-scenes tale of the 2019 Cats movie, would you consider this a baby flop, a big flop, or a mega flop? I would consider this a mega flop because of all of the effort and work that went into it. Every performance, you could tell each actor was giving it their all.

And all the VFX and everything that went into it. It just felt like, you know, you think under all that pressure, you're going to make a diamond and it just didn't come together. I agree with you, Sarah. I think it's also a mega flop and especially like thinking of how many people just like either lost their jobs or aren't going to get rehired because of what they created. And that's not fair. And I think that that makes this a mega flop. Because you're right,

the people that tried as hard as they could, but it just was not feasible. Yeah. They should have had a whole other year. Just do it the next year. Yeah. Well, thank you to our lovely guests, Sarah Cooper and Jackie Zebrowski.

And thanks to you for listening to The Big Flop. Next week, we're diving into the messiest event since Fyre Fest. Millie Tameras and Elise Morales from the Betches Sup podcast join me to break down TanaCon, a YouTuber's attempt to create her own convention with disastrous results. These are the most insane details I have ever... This is like a social media mad lib person. If you like The Big Flop, you can listen early and ad-free on Wondery Plus.

Join Wondery Plus in the Wondery app or on Apple Podcasts. Prime members can listen ad-free on Amazon Music. Before you go, tell us about yourself by filling out a short survey at wondery.com slash survey. The Big Flop is a production of Wondery and Atwill Media, hosted by me, Misha Brown, produced and edited by Levi Sharp, written by Marina Tempelsman, engineered by Zach Rapone. Our executive producers are Rosie Guerin, Will Malnati, and Samantha Story for At Will Media, developed by Christina Friel. Legal support provided by Carolyn Levin of Miller, Korzenik, Summers, Raymond. Producers for Wondery are Matt Beagle and Grant Rutter. Senior producer is Lizzie Bassett. Senior story editor is Phyllis Fletcher. Managing producer is Ricky Wiebe. And executive producers are Morgan Jones and Marshall Louis for Wondery.

We are on a sinking ship. We are on a sinking ship.