The Cat in the Hat box office collection has started with a number Warner Bros. will not want to frame: just $1 million from Thursday previews in North America. The animated adventure opened in cinemas yesterday, 6 November 2026, and the first figures reported today, 7 November, show a family film struggling to find its audience on opening night. For a movie built to launch an entire Dr. Seuss universe on screen, the opening is a warning sign, not a celebration.
Bill Hader voices the Cat in this brand-new take on the 1957 book, and the film is the first full-length feature from the newly relaunched Warner Bros. Pictures Animation. Everything about the release was designed to be big: theatres and IMAX, a star voice cast, a brand-new song, and a story that turns the Cat into an agent of chaos on his last chance at work. The preview numbers tell a different story, and the weekend tracking has fallen a long way from where it started. Here is what the first numbers say, why they matter, and what to watch over the rest of the weekend.
Image Credit: Warner Bros. Pictures – Official Trailer via YouTube
The Cat in the Hat box office collection: Thursday previews in full
The first numbers in The Cat in the Hat box office collection come from box office analyst Luiz Fernando, reported by Koimoi today, 7 November. The film collected just $1 million from Thursday previews at the North American box office. Previews are the evening shows on the day before a film’s official opening, and they are the earliest real test of how much excitement a release is carrying into its first weekend.
That $1 million sits at the bottom of the comparison table for recent animated releases. It matches Wildwood’s $1 million in previews, a film that is currently enjoying good word of mouth, but it falls behind The Bad Guys 2 at $1.1 million, Forgotten Island at $1.5 million and The Wild Robot at $2 million. The Wild Robot, in particular, shows what the gap means: it previewed at double the Cat’s number and went on to a long, healthy run. The Cat has not been given that kind of head start.
The preview figure also sets up the weekend. Based on current estimates, Koimoi reports the film is tracking to earn between $15 million and $20 million in its opening weekend in North America, and it is not expected to land in the top spot. Variety’s latest estimate is a little kinder, putting the opening at $20 million to $25 million from roughly 4,000 theatres. Either way, this is a soft debut for a film of this size, and the final number will depend almost entirely on how many families turn up on Saturday and Sunday.
5 shocking facts from the opening numbers
The Cat in the Hat box office collection opens with five facts that explain why Hollywood is watching this weekend so closely.
1. The previews are just $1 million. The Cat in the Hat box office collection begins with a single million dollars from Thursday night shows. For a wide release in around 4,000 theatres, that is a quiet start, and it is the number that dragged the weekend tracking down with it.
2. The weekend tracking has more than halved. Early tracking at the end of October put the film at around $41 million for its opening weekend. Today it is tracking at $15 million to $20 million. A film does not lose half its projected opening without the audience telling the trackers something, and the message here is that families are not rushing out for this one.
3. It will not win its own opening weekend. Koimoi reports the film is not landing in the top spot in North America. Godzilla Minus Zero, which opened on the same day, took $13.5 million on its first Friday in the United States alone, and the monster is the film setting the pace this weekend.
4. The critics are split right down the middle. The Cat in the Hat sits at 49% on the Tomatometer from 41 reviews, with a Metacritic score of 47 from 11 critics. That is a genuinely divided verdict: some critics love the chaos and Hader’s performance, others find the film too hectic and the story too thin. Mixed reviews rarely help a family film, because parents read them before booking.
5. The budget makes the stakes enormous. Reports put the film’s budget at close to $100 million, though no official figure has been confirmed, and other estimates place it between $70 million and $90 million. Even at the lower end, a $15 million to $20 million opening leaves the film with a very long road to profit, and it was supposed to be the foundation of a whole Seuss franchise.
The tracking collapse: from $41 million to $15 million
The most striking part of The Cat in the Hat box office collection is not the preview number itself. It is how far the expectations have fallen in the space of a few weeks. Box Office Pro’s long-range forecast once pointed to a $40 million to $50 million opening, a range that would have given Warner Bros. its first $40 million opener of the year. Box Office Theory projected $25 million to $35 million. Even the gloomiest early claim, a $17 million to $22 million figure circulating at the start of November, now looks closer to the truth than the optimistic forecasts did.
Tracking falls for a reason. Presales were weak, with online box-office watchers describing the picture as dire as far back as 3 November. The first reviews, which arrived when the embargo lifted on Tuesday, did not rescue the numbers. And the film is opening in a crowded Diwali weekend in India and a packed November in North America, where Godzilla Minus Zero is taking the event-movie audience and Ramayana is dominating screens in India. The Cat was supposed to own the family audience. Instead, it is fighting for it.
Critics are split down the middle
The reviews explain part of the problem. The Cat in the Hat currently holds 49% on Rotten Tomatoes, based on 41 reviews, which puts it in genuinely split territory. The Hollywood Reporter’s Frank Scheck called it an improvement on the 2003 version but still “more taxing than enjoyable”. Variety’s Owen Gleiberman described it as “junior Marvel surrealism” and “a de facto video-game movie for a game that doesn’t exist”. ScreenRant gave it 5 out of 10, saying that while it has some funny moments, the chaos overwhelms the charm.
The other side of the split is real, too. AwardsWatch gave the film 75 out of 100, writing that it “is loud, unruly, and occasionally a little too pleased with its own chaos, but its good humor is hard to resist”. Positive reviews praise the voice cast, call the film fun, humorous, clever, magical and heartfelt, and single out Hader’s turn as the Cat as a complete success. That is a five-times-better Rotten Tomatoes score than the 2003 live-action film, which sits at 10%. But a 49% score is not the kind of number that sends parents to the booking page, and for a family film, the audience score matters more than the critics. That number is still forming.
What a soft opening means for Warner Bros.’ Seuss universe
This is where The Cat in the Hat box office collection stops being a single weekend’s story and becomes a studio story. The Cat in the Hat is the first full-length feature from Warner Bros. Pictures Animation, animated by DNEG, and it was designed as the doorway into a wider Seuss universe on screen. A strong opening would have set up that slate for years. A weak one leaves the studio rethinking the whole plan, because franchise plans built on a $15 million opening tend not to survive contact with the first quarterly review.
Warner Bros. moved the film from its original February date to November precisely to catch the holiday-season family audience, and the release strategy shows how much was riding on it: theatres and IMAX in North America and India from 6 November, an international rollout that began on 4 November, and a UK and Ireland release following on 4 December. The film also carries a brand-new original song, “CATastrophe”, performed by Hilary Duff, which arrived with a new trailer on 1 October. None of that has translated into opening-night urgency yet, and the studio will be hoping the film behaves like Wildwood, whose identical $1 million previews turned into a long run on good word of mouth, rather than fading after a soft first weekend.
The 2003 film still casts a long shadow
Every conversation about this film eventually returns to the 2003 live-action version, and the comparison is not kind to the new one. The Mike Myers film opened to $38.3 million in November 2003 and finished with $134 million worldwide against a $109 million budget. It was so disliked that the Seuss estate reportedly banned further live-action adaptations, which is why this animated version exists at all.
The new film is tracking to open at well under half of the 2003 film’s debut, before inflation is even taken into account. That is a remarkable statistic for a film that is, by the critics’ own account, a major improvement on its predecessor. It also shows how much the market has changed: a family film in 2026 has to fight streaming habits, shorter theatrical windows and a crowded calendar, and a beloved book is no longer a guarantee of a big opening. The 2003 film won its weekend. The 2026 film, by every current estimate, will not.
What to watch this weekend
Three things will decide how The Cat in the Hat box office collection looks by Monday morning. The first is the Friday number: if the film jumps strongly from its $1 million previews, the weekend could still land toward the top of the $20 million to $25 million range. The second is the family turnout on Saturday, which is traditionally the biggest day for an animated release and the day when word of mouth from Friday’s audiences starts to show. The third is the audience score on Rotten Tomatoes, which has not posted yet because it needs more than 50 verified ratings, and which will tell us whether children are loving a film their parents are unsure about.
The international numbers will matter too. The rollout began on 4 November in several countries, and the film’s worldwide total, not just the North American one, will decide whether Warner Bros. keeps building its Seuss universe. For now, though, the honest picture is simple: a $1 million preview night, a $15 million to $20 million weekend on the cards, critics split down the middle, and a studio waiting to see whether families save the Cat over the weekend.
The Cat in the Hat box office collection FAQs
What is The Cat in the Hat box office collection so far?
The Cat in the Hat box office collection stands at $1 million from Thursday previews in North America, reported today, 7 November 2026. The film released in cinemas on 6 November 2026.
How much is The Cat in the Hat tracking to earn in its opening weekend?
The film is tracking to earn between $15 million and $20 million in its opening weekend in North America, according to Koimoi. Variety’s estimate is $20 million to $25 million from roughly 4,000 theatres.
Who voices the Cat in the Hat?
Bill Hader voices the Cat, and he is also an executive producer on the film. Xochitl Gomez voices Gabby, Tiago Martinez voices Sebastian, Matt Berry is the talking goldfish Waffles, Quinta Brunson is Sherri from HR, Giancarlo Esposito voices Mr. Hoogeboom and America Ferrera plays their mother Carmen.
What is the story of The Cat in the Hat?
The Cat works for the I.I.I.I., the Institute for the Institution of Imagination and Inspiration, and gets one last assignment: cheer up Gabby and Sebastian, two siblings struggling after a move to a new town. He arrives with a time-manipulating device called the Go-Backer, which goes missing and sets off a chase through worlds hidden inside their moving boxes. We covered the release date and the trailer when they were announced.
Is The Cat in the Hat streaming on OTT?
No streaming date or platform has been announced yet. It is a theatrical-first release, in theatres and IMAX, with the UK and Ireland release following on 4 December.
The Cat in the Hat box office collection has begun with a whisper rather than a roar, and the weekend will decide whether that whisper turns into a word-of-mouth recovery or a warning for Warner Bros.’ Seuss plans. The Cat has survived worse than a soft preview night in 69 years of stories. Whether he survives this opening weekend is a question only Saturday’s families can answer.
