Dog friendly screenings of Cats are happening. Perhaps the biggest story at theaters during the tail end of 2019 was, for all the wrong reasons, the arrival of the big screen adaptation of the smash hit Broadway musical, Cats.
The lavish Andrew Lloyd Webber production first arrived back in 1981, and after much acclaim as well as a triumphant run of awards, Cats firmly established itself as one of the greatest stage productions of all time. Given the duration of time that Cats has dominated stages around the world, it may come as a surprise for some as to how long it took to get a film adaptation off the ground. After all, there have been numerous popular stage to film productions over the years, with the most recent example of success being Tom Hooper’s Oscar-winning take on Les Miserables, back in 2012. Hooper’s retelling of the classic Victor Hugo novel provided the degree of confidence that Universal apparently needed in order to go ahead with adapting Cats. The lead up to the film’s release was fraught with problems, including complaints quite late in the overall production regarding Cats‘ use of CGI. The problem was eventually corrected, but unfortunately it wasn’t enough to save the film upon its release.
Now some three weeks after its initial release, the truth about Hooper’s Cats adaptation is that it is a major box office disaster. Savaged by critics and audiences alike, Cats has rather unfortunately become more of a point of ridicule than any sort of serious contender for awards recognition or praise. Most recently during the Golden Globes ceremony, Ricky Gervais further mocked it, and now, as evidenced by a tweet from Scott J. Davis, it appears that dogs might be the best remaining hope that Cats has for some ticket sales. Indeed, some theaters are setting aside special screenings of the box office disaster for man’s best friend.
The dog-friendly screenings are not likely to help get Cats back on track, however. The $95 million production has so far managed to gross $54 million worldwide, with recent stats suggesting Cats is on track to lose $71 million. Universal has long since cut their ties to the film as well, having omitted Cats from their For Your Consideration page – a move that makes it clear how little faith the studio retains for the beleaguered adaptation. It should be noted then, that any theater screening involving dogs (or cats), has nothing to do with Universal and is done solely at the discretion of the theater itself. Things may be bad for Universal and Cats, but they’ve yet to get to the point where resorting to gimmickry is a legitimate option.
All of this being said, of course, Universal could do a lot worse than creating special screenings of Cats. At this point, it’s certainly not as if the film can be the butt of much worse derision. It’s also only fair to point out that while the film won’t be recouping its budget any time soon, there are those who genuinely liked it. As time passes, there is always the chance of Cats becoming a cult favorite. Time will tell if that becomes the case, but for now, the film’s dismal opening and subsequent terrible reviews have unfortunately marked Cats as one of the biggest failures in recent memory.
