8 Movies That Were Changed AFTER They Were Released

by Danny Meegan

1. The Movie Was Patched To Fix Its Visual Effects (Cats)

Cats Judi Dench
Universal

Even with an amazing cast, a prime December release date and a talented director in The King's Speech and Les Misérables helmer Tom Hooper, Cats quickly became the internet's favourite punching bag immediately after its bizarre-looking debut trailer dropped in the summer of 2019.

The main target of that mockery was - and still is - the movie's visual effects, with Hooper transforming a litter of famous faces into furry, nightmarish human/feline hybrids, creatures that the masses struggled to take seriously in what was supposed to be a "prestige" adaptation of the famous stage musical.

But while we've all spent the last six months laughing at the visual effects, Hooper and his team have been doing the exact opposite. The filmmakers started tweaking and refining the CGI shortly after the trailer backlash became a big problem, and Hooper - pressed for time - only fully finished the film the day before its London premiere.

Because of all this last-minute tinkering, the movie was even changed after it had already hit theatres. During its opening weekend, Universal notified cinemas that an updated version of Cats was available for download, one that contained "improved visual effects", fixing issues like one particular shot where Judi Dench's real human hand was blatantly visible.

This unusual turn of events was reportedly requested by Hooper, who clearly felt rushed and wanted to ensure that everything was as polished as possible - even if that meant tinkering with the movie way past when it should have been 100% complete.

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Any other movies that were tweaked after they'd already been released? Let us know in the comments section!

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Danny has been with WhatCulture for over ten years, and is currently Doctor Who Editor and WhoCulture Channel Manager, overseeing all of WhatCulture's Whoniverse coverage. In 2022, he took charge of WhoCulture and has grown it into the biggest Doctor Who channel on YouTube, and one of the biggest Doctor Who communities on the web full-stop. He has been writing and video editing since his early teens, and first got a taste for content creation after making his own Doctor Who trailers, off the back of a burning obsession with the Matt Smith era of the show. Like many his age, he first got into Doctor Who with the 2005 revival, but has since gone back and fallen in love with the classic years too. If you need someone to recite every Doctor Who episode in order, or to give you a random factoid about the making of Gridlock, Danny is the person to ask!