If you were creeped out by the trailer for the star-studded movie adaptation of the Broadway musical Cats, you’re not alone.
Twitter was so creeped out by the swishing tails and twitching whiskers on the human cast, that the producers were forced to respond to the backlash.
It’s one thing to see people dressed up as cats onstage, but transforming humans into cats using computer-generated imagery is just unsettling.
“It would be a little less unsettling if they didn’t have human hands, feet, and faces,” said one YouTube viewer.
Another viewer wrote: “I imagine this is what a cat sees when overdosing on catnip.”
The $100 million movie stars Taylor Swift, Idris Elba, Jennifer Hudson, James Corden and Judi Dench as feline-ized humans.
Producer Eric Feliner is unimpressed with the backlash on Twitter. “What does one say? The reality is that 100 million people or more saw the trailer, and, yes, there were some people that didn’t like it,” said Feliner. “As is the world we live in, those who didn’t like it were the most vociferous.”
Producer Tim Bevan had a different take on the controversy. He believes the people who hated the trailer just aren’t cat people in general.
“They were probably people who didn’t know ‘Cats’, and the fact is they were either anticipating something animated or something that was on four legs,” Bevan theorized. “Among people who know ‘Cats’, the reaction was pretty solid.”
Cats is in theaters this Christmas.
Watch the trailer below. But it might creep you out if you’re not a cat person.