Halle Berry as Catwoman
Image: Warner Bros.

In the highly unlikely event that anyone was still wondering whether mononymous French director Pitof’s 2004 Catwoman wasn’t actually an absolute disaster, one of the film’s writers would like you to know that he thought it was a “shit movie.” Bold words. Bold, honest words.

In response to former First Lady Michelle Obama’s glowing endorsement of Black Panther for its black representation, Federalist culture critic D.C. McAllister took to Twitter to question why there hadn’t been a similar groundswell of support around Pitof’s Catwoman. Aside from the fact that the titular leads of both films are black superheroes with feline motifs, there aren’t that many similarities between the two.


Black Panther’s black-led production team put a tremendous amount of work into realizing a version of Wakanda that was inspired by and celebratory of many of Africa’s cultures. Catwoman’s production team churned out a weird story about ancient Egyptian cat magic and fighting against an evil makeup mogul. There were some feminist elements to Catwoman to be sure, but the movie as a whole was so bad that really, it’s hard to focus on its few positive features.

That’s a charitable view of the film compared to Catwoman co-writer John Rogers’, who saw McAllister’s complaint and straight up called his own movie out for being hot garbage:


Rogers’ point about cultural relevance is likely in reference to the fact that the vast majority of Catwoman’s production team—its director, cinematographer, writers, and producers—were mostly white and male. Halle Berry’s performance was bad, to be sure, but who knows how much of that can be attributed to the fact that the creative minds behind the movie had no idea how to build a proper story for the actor to shine in?

In any case, let it now be known that Catwoman’s terribleness isn’t just the stuff of general internet nerd smugness. At least one of the folks who made the movie hates it even more than you do.