After debuting the primary trailer for The Cat within the Hat with one in every of summer time’s largest films, Superman, Warner Bros. has now determined to delay the animated movie’s launch by 9 months. Based mostly on the beloved Dr. Seuss e book that was first revealed in 1957, this newest adaptation stars Invoice Hader because the title character and marks the second try at a Cat within the Hat movie, following the vital and industrial live-action flop starring Mike Myers in 2003.
Deadline stories that Warner Bros. has pushed The Cat within the Hat again to Nov. 6, 2026. This marks the second launch date change for The Cat within the Hat, which was initially slated to open on Mar. 6, 2026, however was bumped as much as the final week of February to keep away from competitors with Pixar’s Hoppers, which is able to open the primary week of March. Its late February date would have put it in theaters the identical weekend as Scream 7; now, it is the one film set for the primary weekend of November. (That is clearly going to vary, however there’s one thing to be mentioned for arriving first.)
‘The Cat within the Hat’ Seems to be to Replicate the Successful Playbook Utilized by ‘The Grinch’
Whereas Warner Bros. hasn’t supplied any particular purpose for The Cat and the Hat‘s delay, there seem like a variety of elements. As talked about earlier than, Hoppers was doubtless a major issue, as there have been in all probability considerations about releasing two high-profile animated films again to again. Even with the field workplace flop of Elio, Pixar continues to be a powerful model identify, whereas The Cat within the Hat would possibly nonetheless carry the bags of the earlier adaptation.
Shifting The Cat within the Hat to the primary weekend in November has Warner Bros. following within the footwear of Illumination Leisure’s animated adaptation of Dr. Seuss’ The Grinch, which opened on Nov. 2, 2018, with $67 million and topped the field workplace. Given the Christmas setting, the film performed extraordinarily effectively through the vacation season and lingered within the home prime 10 till January 2019. Though The Cat within the Hat lacks a vacation tie-in, Warner Bros. might hope it’s going to keep an identical maintain through the vacation interval, with a month to spare earlier than the busy December schedule that includes Avengers: Doomsday, Dune Half III, and Ice Age 6.
Curiously, 2003’s Cat within the Hat additionally opened in November. Whereas it topped the field workplace in its debut weekend with $38 million and held on throughout the next Thanksgiving week, by its third weekend it dropped by 70% and was out of the home prime 10 inside 5 weeks of launch. 2003’s The Cat within the Hat bought horrible critiques from critics and was the nail within the coffin for live-action diversifications of Dr. Seuss books. Hopefully, historical past will not repeat itself, particularly provided that Warner Bros. is betting massive on it to start out a brand new franchise set to proceed with Jon M. Chu’s Oh, The Locations You will Go.