It’s almost too easy to dunk on Cats; it ended up being a mess of a movie and a failure at the box office. The movie is such a nightmare that when stars James Corden and Rebel Wilson appeared at the Oscars on Sunday to present the award for visual effects, they snarked on their own movie. “As cast members of the motion picture Cats, nobody more than us understands the importance of good visual effects,” they said, to audience laughter. But you won’t hear the artists who worked on the movie laughing with them.
After the Oscars, one of the artists who worked for Moving Picture Company, the now-shuttered company that worked on Cats, tweeted, “Hey guys I haven’t watched all of the Oscars but I assume these two were really classy and thanked me for working 80 hour weeks right up until I was laid off and the studio closed, right?”
If that wasn’t enough, the 4,000-member Visual Effects Society also released a statement criticizing the jokes, Variety reports. “The best visual effects in the world will not compensate for a story told badly…” the statement reads. “On a night that is all about honoring the work of talented artists, it is immensely disappointing that The Academy made visual effects the butt of a joke. It demeaned the global community of expert VFX practitioners doing outstanding, challenging and visually stunning work to achieve the filmmakers’ vision.”
“Our artists, technicians and innovators deserve respect for their remarkable contributions to filmed entertainment, and should not be presented as the all-too-convenient scapegoat in service for a laugh,” they continued.
At least there’s hope that the twisted beauty of Cats will live on as a cult classic?