In the realm of sure things at the box office Cats seemed like one of them. The legendary Broadway show was getting the big screen treatment and a Christmas release with a massive cast including Taylor Swift, Idris Elba, Judi Dench, Ian McKellen, Rebel Wilson and Jennifer Hudson. Add to that Oscar winning director Tom Hooper, who also directed 2012's Les Miserables which made over $400 million worldwide.
What happened?
The easiest thing is to say it released on the same day as Star Wars: The Rise of Skywalker, but Jumanji: Welcome to the Jungle released the week after Star Wars: The Last Jedi in 2017 and went on the make $962 million worldwide. Cats was poised to be the anti-Star Wars release which is not bad marketing. It is widely known as the most beloved musical of all time, but has only managed $40 million worldwide since its release on December 20th.
When Cats released reviews were not kind, even from other stars that went to see the film and publicly talked about how bad it was. Some stars like Taylor Swift and James Corden tried to distance themselves from the movie.
Then came the announcement that Universal would be sending theaters an updated version of the movie with better visual effects. Try and unpack this; a studio sent an updated version of a movie only in theaters a week because it was released with unfinished special effects like a patch for a video game. Insert any *wow* gif you want here.
Now with the budget for Cats at $100 million and marketing cost around the same Universal is looking at losing more than $70 million on the musical adaptation. Goes to show there are no sure things in Hollywood.