The ‘Cats’ Trailer Has Left People Baffled Over The Uncanny ‘Digital Fur Technology’ Effects

On Thursday, July 18th, 2019, right in the middle of San Diego Comic-Con, the first teaser trailer for Tom Hooper’s upcoming film adaptation of the musical Cats was released. Everyone was there — Taylor Swift, Idris Elba, a bunch of giant pieces of furniture and props meant to make the movie’s world appear more cat-like. And yet, despite the seemingly nonsensical promise of “digital fur technology,” what audiences ended up getting was something equally beautiful and horrifying.

The industry was well aware that the first Cats trailer was going to drop sometime late on Thursday. However, when the official Twitter account for Working Title, one of the companies producing the film, revealed that it would be dropping at 10 p.m. local time, everyone stateside quickly realized that they would get the chance to see said digital fur technology in action before the sun had set. So, everyone watched it and… and… well, nobody quite knows what to think or say at this point.

From mixtures of pure excitement and cautious optimism to downright, unrepentant horror, entertainment journalists covering Comic-Con, fans, and some of the usual Twitter suspects just couldn’t seem to wrap their heads around the Cats trailer. To be honest, it’s not even remotely possible to organize everyone’s responses. The best thing anyone can do is precisely what these people all did with the trailer: just try your best to take it all in and not go completely crazy.

— Scott Wampler™ (@ScottWamplerBMD) July 18, 2019

https://twitter.com/jaarlos/status/1151962142880489496/photo/1

— Liz Shannon Miller (@lizlet) July 18, 2019

DIRECTOR OF THE "CATS" MOVIE: It looks great, right People are going to want to fuck these cats so bad!

EVERYONE ELSE: …

— Josh Gondelman (@joshgondelman) July 18, 2019

pic.twitter.com/u6Q72K0OiN

— Chris Feil (@chrisvfeil) July 18, 2019

pic.twitter.com/Phu7Ltea6Z

— BAKOON (@BAKKOOONN) July 18, 2019

THIS IS AMAZING I THINK I AM HAVING A STROKE pic.twitter.com/0VU7xLsiCp

— Alan Zilberman (@alanzilberman) July 18, 2019

— Rachel Heine (@RachelHeine) July 18, 2019

I will never recover pic.twitter.com/inyxUKHLZS

— Esther Zuckerman (@ezwrites) July 18, 2019

pic.twitter.com/tqJphudvL3

— Caroline Darya Framke (@carolineframke) July 18, 2019

digital fur technology pic.twitter.com/sPq0ubepJZ

— Sam Adams (@SamuelAAdams) July 18, 2019

What. And how. And what. And why. And what. pic.twitter.com/9xpbBLlDHM

— Joanna Robinson (@jowrotethis) July 18, 2019

I DONT KNOW HOW TO FEEL ABOUT ANY OF THIS #CatsMovie pic.twitter.com/MxLdObyeEd

— Jarett Wieselman (@JarettSays) July 18, 2019

pic.twitter.com/wj9IelU15q

— hunter harris (@hunteryharris) July 18, 2019

These effects are worse than Sonic https://t.co/oVYXKAsWnN

— Andrew Husband (@AndrewHusband) July 18, 2019

THIS IS BETTER THAN I COULD POSSIBLY HAVE IMAGINED https://t.co/YTAevoqfVb

— karen han (@karenyhan) July 18, 2019

Well, I now no longer fear death. https://t.co/LhJt7IGAab

— Kayleigh Donaldson (@Ceilidhann) July 18, 2019

look, i know we all have a lot of questions right now, but the only thing i want to know is whether the fur coats the cats are wearing are made out of other cats pic.twitter.com/hUtcRBOBQp

— Alex Zalben (@azalben) July 18, 2019

i don't know about you, but this is total doo-doo. pic.twitter.com/zXSkgp1TEs

— Julia Alexander (@loudmouthjulia) July 18, 2019

ah yes, just as I suspected: the cats have human boobs

— Dana Murphy (@manadurphy) July 18, 2019

My one hope for the Cats movie is that they don't CGI out the cat dicks like those pussies behind Lion King

— Vince Mancini (@VinceMancini) July 18, 2019

Pennywise taking the form that scares us the most pic.twitter.com/TSn5LwwcON

— Nick Romano (@NickARomano) July 18, 2019

Though, in the spirit of at least attempting to organize everything into a coherent nugget of information, here’s film writer Jason Bailey’s take on it all.

— Jason Bailey (@jasondashbailey) July 18, 2019