Cats has officially ended its theatrical run and the numbers are not good. Tom Hooper’s big screen adaptation of Andrew Lloyd Webber’s Broadway smash was expected to replicate the success of 2012’s Les Mis&érables and 2017’s The Greatest Showman, but it didn’t even come close. The studio has pulled the movie from theaters after about eight weeks in release, which might be a bummer for the people who enjoyed seeing the movie on various substances for recreational fun and trip out sessions.
Cats, which was just nominated for nine Razzie Awards, made just $27.1 million in the United States and Canada during its nearly 8-week run. The budget, before advertising was reportedly set at $95 million, which makes matters even worse. Thankfully, the musical was able to scare up another $46 million overseas, bringing the grand global total to $73.5 million. Generally, a project wants to make its budget back with the domestic box office numbers, but that was not the case this time around, not by a long shot.
Unfortunately, Cats was doomed before it even hit theaters. Once the first trailer became viral for all the wrong reasons, the studio more than likely freaked out. People were supposed to be excited by the Broadway Musical hitting theaters, not laughing at it and turning it to memes. The sight of Idris Elba and Taylor Swift has realistic humanoid cats is something that nightmares are made of, so a redesign was put in place, which was featured in the second trailer. Reactions were about the same, if not worse, so Tom Hooper went back for more redesigns leading up to the movie’s release, and then again during its opening weekend when it earned just $6.1 million.
In comparison, 2012’s Les Mis&érables made $441 million worldwide on a budget of $61 million. $148 million of that total came from the domestic box office. 2017’s The Greatest Showman did not have a stellar opening weekend with its $8.8 million domestic opening, but it was slowly able to catch on with audiences, going on to earn $174 million domestically and $434 million globally. Cats was never really given a fair chance and has already been getting sniped at in the press by the actors who took part in the movie.
James Corden, who took part in a Cats CGI joke during the Academy Awards, didn’t even bother seeing the movie. For Broadway fans, the big screen adaptation was a letdown for many reasons, not just because of the terrible CGI designs that kept getting changed up. Regardless, there is still plenty of time for Cats to become an underground cult classic since people are already taking drugs to enhance the experience. Soon, there will be monthly showings all over North America with fans dressing up as their favorite CGI cat character. The Cats theatrical numbers were originally reported by Box Office Mojo.
