Cats spent $95M on digital fur and still had to reship a fixed print days after release

Universal bet on director Tom Hooper's CGI-fur adaptation of the stage musical Cats as December counterprogramming against Star Wars: The Rise of Skywalker, spending roughly $95M on production. The digital fur render — human actors composited into cat bodies — was still being finished after the film had already premiered: Universal quietly sent theaters a technically updated print days after the December 16 premiere, an admission that the effects work was not done when critics and early audiences first saw it.

The reaction was immediate and public. Opening weekend gross was $6.5M, a fraction of the $15–20M pre-release projection, and the film placed fourth. Reviews and social media mockery of the uncanny digital fur — actors' faces on cat bodies with human hands and CGI tails — drove the collapse; there was no fix that arrived in time to change audience behavior.

Worldwide gross settled at $75.5M against a roughly $95M budget. Once marketing spend was factored in, Deadline's annual box-office accounting placed the net loss at $113.6M, ranking Cats among the biggest bombs of 2019.