Yes, I’m still absolutely obsessed/horrified with these still photos from Cats. Every time I have an excuse to use them, I WILL USE THEM. So we can all be grossed out by cat bosoms together, and we can all enjoy Jennifer Hudson’s sad catface. But! Guess who will not be enjoying cat bosoms and catfaces? Nearly every critics’ awards and the Golden Globes and the SAG Awards. Because the awards season is so compressed and everything is being moved up, studios will have to take special precautions to screen their Oscar-bait films for various guilds, voters and critics before a certain time. Weirdly – or perhaps not – Cats’ producers have not made the effort to provide screeners or screenings for the Hollywood Foreign Press Association, critics, or guild members before they have to vote on the nominations. LOL.

Every year, a much-anticipated Christmas release provokes speculation about whether it can be finished in time at all. Think Quentin Tarantino’s “Django Unchained” in 2012, followed a year later by Martin Scorsese’s “Wolf of Wall Street.” These movies screened for the first time dripping wet over the Thanksgiving weekend. They came within a hair’s breadth of missing the deadlines for Golden Globes, National Board of Review, the New York Film Critics Circle, the Los Angeles Film Critics Association, and the Screen Actors Guild Awards.

This year’s late-breaking movie is “Cats,” and at this writing it appears that the film will blow multiple awards deadlines. Members of the New York Film Critics have been told by the studio that it shouldn’t expect to see the film before mid-December, after the group votes December 4 — and leaving little lead time before opening December 20. However, the final Globes screening is also December 4. National Board of Review announces its winners December 3. SAG nominations close December 8, and the list goes on.

Even if the film is finished in time for SAG, breaking late can hurt the chances for the starry “Cats” ensemble, which includes Jennifer Hudson, Judi Dench, Ian McKellen, Taylor Swift, and Idris Elba. On the other hand, given the right support in other quarters, a strong entry can usually catch up where the later-voting Oscars are concerned.

[From Indie Wire]

This seems like a dumb strategy overall, unless… the producers KNOW that their strange cat-bosom film was always going to be snubbed for major awards and that’s why they’re suddenly like “ugh, it’s not ready, yeah that’s it.” I mean… Taylor Swift wants an Oscar nomination for Best Song, and maybe the studio will put some money into that, but beyond that one nomination, Cats isn’t getting much of anything, right? I mean, it’s stupid to think that the film would get nominated for any Best Picture, or any Cats actor would be recognized. And let’s be really REAL: they shouldn’t expect any visual/special effects awards either because this looks like a g–damn hellscape.

Photos courtesy of ‘Cats’.