Star Wars charged out to dominate everything in the cinemas over Xmas even though optimists last September believed that Cats would stand up to it. By week four the space opera had made $43m, while the jovial Jumanji 2 had taken almost $37m in three weeks with no chance of catching up.
The critics think Cats is a stinker and audiences think it is plain weird if not sexually disturbing in a polyester furry kind of way. Word of mouth can beat any of these hurdles, as happened with Suicide Squad which has even spawned a sequel. But word of mouth for the singing, dancing, humanoid felines was crafted from the tongues of scorpions and Cats has made $3.85m in three weeks, which is basically ten percent of Jumanji. However, Cats is gaining a reputation for cultishly strange, and may yet turn around.
