Age of The Nerd
It takes a team of dedicated people to make a feature film. If you don’t believe me just watch the ending credits of any film that has come out in the last sixty to seventy years. It takes a lot of hard work and time to tell a tale in ninety minutes, and it can take one or two executives to turn it into a flop.
A case in point is the decision to open Cats around the same time as Star Wars. In fact, on further investigation according to IMDB, both films were released on the same day. It is a crazy idea to release a film like Cats against Star Wars which has a built-in fan base of forty plus years. The idea of the fandom and the fan’s thirst for this film should have been enough warning to the producers of Cats and the studio to move the release date.
That means somewhere out there someone who gets paid lots and lots of money sat in a board room and the idea of a Cats and Star Wars showdown was thought up. And if that person wasn’t fired yet then Hollywood is a crazy place.
To date, Star Wars has grossed $516 million domestically and internationally. Cats have grossed 11.2 million globally making it one of the biggest flops of 2019. The question I have for Hollywood is why not wait until mid-January to release Cats? The fandom of Star Wars would be winding down and a couple of horror movies (The Grudge and Gretel and Hansel) would be released. If Hollywood wanted to fill the void and market to a family-friendly audience then mid-January would have been a perfect time for a Cats release. You never win against the Darkside unless you’re a Jedi, and Cats needs a little more training and a better marketing team.
