It’s easy to say that, when it comes to the Cats movie’s poor box office receipts, the writing has been on the litter box wall since the first teaser trailer dropped. Of course, such hindsight-driven analysis would be unfair, but judging by Universal’s decision to pull the film’s Oscars campaign and the cast’s seemingly collective decision to distance themselves, it’s easy to see why so many people were put off by the film’s initial previews. It’s also helpful for explaining precisely why director Tom Hooper’s film has been doing so poorly at the box office.
Now, according to a report from Deadline, it seems the Cats movie is going to lose even more money than previously thought:
[The film] is bound to lose at least $71M — that is, if the pic reaches a global box office result of $100M, meaning $40M stateside and $60M abroad. This is based off a production cost of $90M net — the pic was shot on soundstages in London — and a $115M estimated global P&A spend.
These numbers were, unsurprisingly, neither confirmed nor commented upon by anyone from Universal. Not that the studio responsible for financing and distributing such a cinematic mess would want to say anything more about it. For, as Deadline‘s reporting continues to suggest, things are going to get even worse once Cats makes the leap to home release. All told, analysts suspect the movie will earn a total of $155 million on the home market, but only after Universal’s planned (and total) promotions and advertising budget balloons to $226 million.
It’s almost as if all that money is simply going to…
(Via Deadline)
