While the days of lucrative box office returns for musicals have mostly gone the way of the dodo, that's not to say they can't be profitable. 2002's CHICAGO made over six times its $45 million budget and won the Academy Award for Best Picture. Baz Luhrmann's 2001 film MOULIN ROUGE starring Nicole Kidman and Ewan McGregor was also a huge hit with audiences. When director Tom Hooper began developing a film adaptation of the smash Broadway musical Cats there was no reason to suspect that it couldn't also be successful. After all the man was an Oscar winning director and his 2012 musical LES MISERABLES made almost $450 million worldwide.
Sadly the marketing line of "past results do not guarantee future outcome" definitely applies to CATS. The star studded film debuted with a miserable $6.5 million opening weekend and has garnered a paltry $38 million globally in its first two weeks of release. You can site numerous reasons for CATS' failure to scratch up cash at the box office. The film released the same weekend as THE RISE OF SKYWALKER (not a good plan) and the effects shots weren't even finished when the movie premiered, prompting new prints to be released on Hooper's orders. Brutal critical reviews also probably pushed audiences away and let's be honest, human-cat hybrids just look terrifying. No amount of dynamic Jennifer Hudson vocals can make up for that.
Well for Universal the hits just keep on coming. Reports now claim that CATS is projected to lose approximately $100 million or more at the box office. While that statistic may seem surprising considering the film cost $100 million to make, there's other factors to account for. Universal spent an additional $95-100 million in marketing and distribution rights. Promotional costs also come into play and who knows how much the aforementioned reprints ended up costing the company. What's even more stunning is that CATS couldn't even recoup a significant amount of money during the holiday season, typically a prime moviegoing time for families on break. It seems as though Universal was expecting CATS to be a sleeper hit, ala 2017's THE GREATEST SHOWMAN starring Hugh Jackman. Alas it was not to be.
Personally I thought CATS was an awful idea from the word "go." Making a film adaptation of a musical based on weird-ass poems about cats just doesn't make much sense. A film like this has to have broader appeal than just hardcore musical fans. LES MISERABLES at least addresses universal themes people can relate to. CATS has Taylor Swift dumping catnip on a ball and multiple feline crotch shots. I nevertheless feel bad for the people involved. No one intentionally goes out to make a bad movie, and CATS' box office failure could have significant impact on the employees behind the film. At the same time I guess that's the risk you take in this business.
CATS starring Idris Elba, Ian McKellen, Taylor Swift, Rebel Wilson, James Corden, Judi Dench, and Jennifer Hudson is currently in theaters.