Ever since its trailer was released less than 24 hours ago, there has been a scathing backlash aimed directly at Tom Hooper’s “Cats.” This backlash seems to stem from the movie’s usage of so-called “digital fur technology.” The Daily Mail has a nice roundup of the negative reaction [ditto Ad Week]. Suffice to say, as mentioned yesterday, the film has gone from Oscar contender to Oscar pretender. A bump to 2020 now must, surely, be on the table. If anything, Universal must be feeling the pressures of having to release a new trailer to clean up this whole mess. They are probably scrambling as we speak, but, the stink of what we’ve just seen will no doubt resonate further. This is very bad news for the film, which was touted by some as a major Oscar contender, that is before footage was actually shown late Thursday.
As I wrote yesterday:
“Universal UK decided to release the full trailer for “Cats” this afternoon and, errr, it’s not pretty. I’m not sure what to make of the VFX-infused frames, but, lest we forget, there is a reason why it’s taken over 38 years to finally bring “Cats” to the big screen. It’s a musical that has, for the longest time, been deemed “unfilmable.”"
