"Cats" Hacks a Hair Ball at the Box Office

Scene from Cats

Things just keep getting worse for Cats. In just a week, the film featured some of the year's worst reviews with many bashing the visual design of characters. Then, to make matters worse, director Tom Hooper came forward to say that there was a cut coming to theaters this week with "improved" special effects. In one of the more predictable moves, its choice to open opposite Star Wars: Rise of Skywalker may have backfired, as the film becomes a rare Christmas season movie musical bomb. No, the good cheer towards our whiskered friends wasn't enough to draw out audiences, and one has to wonder if things will ever rebound. After all, cats are known for having nine lives. What are the odds that Cats could have just as many?

Coming into the weekend, Cats was projected to earn $15 million at the box office. It was a respectable amount for a musical geared most directly at a female audience. Considering that the Tony-winning Broadway show is among the longest-running most successful shows in theater history, it would make sense that there's an audience for it. To be fair, your Twitter feed is full of videos where theaters got into the joyful, riotous spirit. However, that seems to be rarer than many expected. After accounting for everything, it earned a measly $6.5 million... on a $100 million budget (not accounting for marketing costs). That doesn't look too good for Cats, though there is one thing to be considered going forward.

Because of the glut of content that comes every December, there's a rule of thumb that most Christmas week releases don't have strong openings. Not only that, but opening up against Star Wars didn't help matters since it was the long-awaited conclusion to a multi-billion dollar franchise. Cats could wait. Maybe it will have a bound back next weekend, or even later once the holiday season dies down and people have a chance to escape from their family and watch Judi Dench sing about how a cat is not a dog. This is best represented by a film released two Decembers ago: The Greatest Showman. While it's silly to even call it a bomb nowadays, but it opened to $8.8 million. That film would gross $435 million by the end and its soundtrack would dominate the charts for even longer. Basically, don't entirely count Cats out.

It's tough to determine if this is just a bad opening or if this is the end of a film that always seemed to draw ridicule since its announcement. Even then, those who expected the film to follow in Hooper's previous musical Les Miserables may be disappointed for a variety of reasons. That film grossed $441 million internationally in 2012 and 2013 and would go on to win Oscars and receive a Best Picture nomination. At the pace that Cats is going, it will be Hooper's first movie to miss the Oscars since 2010 when he won Best Picture with The King's Speech. He has won for each of his previous three movies, including most recently Best Supporting Actress for Alicia Vikander in The Danish Girl. With "Beautiful Ghosts" not on the shortlist for Best Original Song and the notorious re-edits of visual effects more than likely canceling it from THAT category, it asks: what could it possibly be nominated for? At this point, maybe Best Production Design, though who knows if it stands any chance beyond that.

With all of this said, the film got a C+ rating from audiences according to CinemaScore. There's a lot of talk about how insane and crazy the film is, suggesting that there will be those who eventually see it as some weird side stage freak show. After all, C+ isn't the curse that an F often is for a film. F's usually are indicators that something didn't connect. With that said, it's not the enthusiastic response that one would hope for from a major holiday release. More so than whether Rise of Skywalker ends up being the lower-grossing Star Wars film, it will be interesting to see if Cats can spring back on its feet and win over people, or if this is the end before things got going (or, in terms of visual effects, fixed).