The encyclopedia · Product & Design · Product decision · 2018–2019
Cats: Universal's $95M musical that lost $113.6M and became a punchline
Tom Hooper's adaptation of the beloved stage musical cost near $100M, opened to $6.5M, grossed $75.5M worldwide — and Deadline counted a $113.6M net loss.
Universal Pictures · 2019-12-20
What happened
Cats — Tom Hooper's live-action adaptation of Andrew Lloyd Webber's stage musical, one of the most successful shows in theater history — cost a near-$100 million to produce. Universal, Working Title and Perfect World financed it, betting that the musical's billions in stage revenue would carry over to cinema.
The film's notorious digital fur effects became a global joke before release. It opened to $6.5 million in the United States, finishing fourth behind Star Wars, Jumanji and Frozen II, and closed with $27.2 million domestic and $74.6 million worldwide. Rotten Tomatoes gave it 21%.
Deadline's annual cost analysis put the net loss at $113.6 million, one of the biggest bombs of 2019. The failure was total and immediate: a beloved property, a prestige director, and a holiday release all failed to overcome a product audiences could not take seriously.
Why it happened
- The technology was the story, and the story was the joke: the uncanny fur effects went viral as mockery, and no marketing campaign survives its own punchline.
- The stage musical's appeal is live spectacle, not cinema: the film adaptation kept the songs and lost the magic, and a $100M production answered a question Broadway audiences had never asked.
- The release plan treated it as a holiday family event, but the audience that might have come was already split between Star Wars and Jumanji — a $6.5M opening showed the film had no pull of its own.
The lesson
A beloved property is not a guarantee: Cats had the music, the brand and a prestige director — and still lost $113.6M because the film itself became the joke.
Sources
- Deadline — The Biggest Box Office Bombs Of 2019: Deadline's Most Valuable Blockbuster Tournament
- Wikipedia — Cats (2019 film)
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