Tim Robey

Five years on from Cats’ disastrous cinema release, Tim Robey, the author of Box Office Poison: Hollywood’s Story in a Century of Flops, looks back on the most nightmarish vision of London to ever hit the big screen I’ll never forget the London press screening of Cats. It was on December 17, 2019, on the same night that The Rise of Skywalker was also unveiled. Somehow, I did the double, back-to-back in Leicester Square, and still bear the scars.  The anti-hype for Cats was at fever pitch by then. Unlike Skywalker, it didn’t disappoint. Entire rows of critics were left agog. Like Malcolm McDowell in A Clockwork Orange, we felt strapped in and helpless, eyelids peeled back, while the nightmarish imagery paraded itself. The trailers, which broke the internet that summer, had promised a horrorshow. It still took us all aback. There was a photoshoot first in the Odeon foyer, the evidence of which survives. I pulled a cat face. Even at the eleventh, doomed hour, Universal hadn’t given up gamely injecting fun into their promotional efforts. There was alcohol – probably their only hope. Photograph: Tim RobeyBefore the storm: Tim Robey and fellow film journalists ahead of the ‘Cats’ screening This was viral failure, memed everywhere, and penetrating mainstream reporting beyond even a Heaven’s Gate (1980). Certainly, it was the most infamous flop since Gigli (2003), and grossed approximately a quarter of what John Carter (2012) did worldwide.  Within about a week, it was noticed th