"Cats" has been released to both disappointing reviews and box office returns, and in an attempt to help stop the bleeding, Universal Pictures has taken the unheard of step of sending a new version of the film to theaters.
Universal characterized the new version as having "some improved visual effects." They sent the new digital version via satellite and hard drives to theaters this past week with the request that theaters replace the old version immediately upon receiving the new one. The film adaptation of the beloved Andrew Lloyd Webber musical opened to highly negative reviews and low box office numbers, with its visual effects in particular being heavily criticized as creepy and inconsistent, with the film being finished only 36 hours before its premiere.
It is rare, though not entirely unheard of for a film to be pulled mid-run (and occasionally re-released at a later date), but it seems to be the first time that a movie has been patched in the middle of its theatrical run, particularly one that is in so many theaters. Whether the revisions will have much of an impact on the reviews and financial returns of the movie, though I do not think it will.
Have you seen "Cats"? What did you think?
I quite enjoyed it, and the kids loved it. The cinema was sold out. Its a musical, it is all about the singing and dancing. I'm not sure what the critics were expecting.
Have you seen the original Broadway musical?
No
I didn’t see the original cast, but did see a traveling show in San Francisco a couple decades ago. It may be my preferences lean to cinema over theater, or I’ve gotten older, but Hoppers film is quite a bit better in my book. Or put another way, except for some questionable casting, none of my problems originated with the movie.
Some months ago the original trailers were also pulled do to negative response (many viewers found them 'creepy'). Now this. My theory is that things that are close to but not quite human are much more unsettling than things (CGA, robots etc) that are not even close.
Doesn't look promising.
The uncanny valley effect.
More like uncatty valley.
We saw it and enjoyed it, and the CGI was a great part of that. I was never interested in the musical of people in cat costumes, but an "alternate universe" of people-like cats (or cat-like people) was intriguing. If they've improved the CGI, fine, but I don't think that's the real "problem."
Most reviewers were just as much put off by the thin story line, but that's what the musical has always been: A collection of types of cats as written in a series of poems. The critics should have been expecting nothing different.
The film is quite paw, I guess the writers weren’t feline well.
The musical is AMAZING! The movie version is shite. Uncanny valley strikes big here, which I think is why a lot of people feel it's creepy, though it doesn't bother me at all. But the actors do not look anything like cats or anthropomorphized cats .The CGI IS bad, lots of clipping in some parts and the physics ...oh boy. Their body 'fur' looks like a skin suit with a fur pattern and their ears are not aligned in a way that a cat person would have ears, and their head shapes are all wrong. They need to take a tip from anime and look up neko girls. There's no plot, really bad choreography. It's like the Sonic movie that will be coming out,that soooo many people complained about because of the lack of Sonicness, but at least before release the guys with Sonic have FIXED the issues people have complained about!
and somehow this story is related to photography??
It's Christmas. The staff are on holiday. Gotta find material from somewhere. :-)
A camera was used to make it?
Plus advertising, got to keep the posts rolling in for ad revenue.
Lee Morris I really wish fstoppers provided a thumbs up/down rating tool for the actual post (not just the comments). It might help content creators fine tune their content.
Every time people want to complain about a post on Fstoppers it is always one of the largest posts of the week. So the most downvoted article would also be the most popular article.
From their mission statement, Fstoppers is about "educating and inspiring photographers, videographers, and creative professionals".