Cats Is a Box Office Bomb With $6.5 Million Opening Weekend

They say that cats always land on their feet, but when it comes to Tom Hooper‘s live-action adaptation of the classic Andrew Lloyd Webber musical Cats, that is certainly not the case. The star-studded film opened in theaters last Friday and as the weekend winds to a close it’s pretty clear that the film hasn’t just been panned by critics and audiences alike. The film is a bona fide bomb bringing in less than half of what it was expected to do during its opening weekend: a paltry $6.5 million.

These numbers come from Box Office Mojo which has the Universal Pictures film sitting at the number four spot for the weekend with that aforementioned $6.5 million — nearly half of what Frozen 2 brought in this weekend. While the film wasn’t expected to win the box office by any stretch — it opened up against Star Wars: The Rise of Skywalker, a film that is dominating the box office at present — Cats was initially expected to do far better, with an estimated $15 million to $17 million in North America during its first three days. Variety later reported that the film was on track bring in a reduced $8.5 million. Turns out that number was a bit on the generous side as well.

Cats‘ low opening box office is particularly troubling given the film’s reported $100 million plus budget and while the film does appear to have its own particular following — a quick glance at social media reveals viewers still trying to come to terms with what they saw in the film, it doesn’t seem like the film’s going to have much of an opportunity to make back any of that huge budget, at least not in the North American market. Time will tell whether the film ends up becoming a cult-classic, though. ComicBook.com’s own Charlie Ridgely suggests in his spoiler-free review that Cats may be a train wreck, but it’s one that some will want to watch again.

“Cats is a special kind of terrible, though. No matter how ridiculous it gets, the cast never once backs down. Every single one of them is all-in at every moment,” Ridgely writes. “It’s a train wreck from start to finish, but the sort of train wreck that captures your attention with its audacity and never lets you go. It’s gripping in the most delightfully horrible way and easily one of the worst movies of the decade, by leaps and bounds. It’s such a unique and confident brand of awful, you’ll probably want to watch it again.”

Cats stars James Corden, Judi Dench, Jason Derulo, Idris Elba, Francesca Hayward, Jennifer Hudson, Ian McKellen, Taylor Swift, and Rebel Wilson.

Have you seen Cats yet? Do you think it will be able to break even with its global box office haul? Let us know in the comments!