Writer of Battlefield Earth names Cats as the new worst movie ever: ‘To regular people, that was f***ing disturbing’

Get our free weekly email for all the latest cinematic news from our film critic Clarisse Loughrey

Get our The Life Cinematic email for free

Please enter a valid email address

Please enter a valid email address

SIGN UP

I would like to be emailed about offers, events and updates from The Independent. Read our privacy policy

Battlefield Earth, the John Travolta-starring sci-fi film based on the novel by Scientology founder L Ron Hubbard, is widely described as one of the worst films of all time.

But JD Shapiro, who wrote the film alongside Corey Mandell, has claimed that there’s a new contender for the throne.

Speaking to The New York Post, Shapiro compared the 2000 film favourably to the 2019 musical Cats.

“I watched about 10 or 15 minutes of Cats and unfortunately, it might beat out Battlefield Earth,” he said. “To regular people, Cats was f***king disturbing.”

The writer has always been candid about the failure of Battlefield Earth, which was a passion project of its star, Travolta.

He personally collected the Razzie award for worst film of the decade in 2010. Shapiro, whose other credits include the Mel Brooks comedy Robin Hood: Men in Tights, has also referred to his own script as “the worst script ever”.

“It wasn’t as I intended – promise,” he once wrote. “No one sets out to make a train wreck. Actually, comparing it to a train wreck isn’t really fair to train wrecks, because people actually want to watch those.”

Cats was near-universally derided upon its release, with much of the criticism focusing on its “creepy” CGI effects. Some of its stars have even turned on the film, such as James Corden, who mocked the project at the 2020 Oscars.