Cat Videos Have Now Made More Than $5 Million At The Box Office

The movie franchise, which has been running in theaters annually since 2019, is exactly what it sounds like. Namely, each installment is a feature-length compilation of contemporary, real cat videos submitted to the festival through their online portal. Each feature plays in limited theaters in addition to festivals, museums, and other less common screening venues for a multiple-week span as part of an effort to raise money for local cat-centric charities, animal welfare organizations, and shelters in addition to organizing fostering, adoptions, fostering, and volunteering.

Per Box Office Mojo, CatVideoFest 2026, which is playing in the United States, Canada, Australia, New Zealand, the United Kingdom, Ireland, and Denmark, earned a 3-day total of $7,291 at the domestic box office during the weekend of November 6. While this is a negligible amount in terms of major domestic releases (Godzilla Minus Zero is No. 1 on the chart with $31.6 million while CatVideoFest is at the very bottom of the chart at No. 34), this sees the 70-minute presentation rising a whopping 4,760.7% from its previous weekend by adding four theaters.

The presentation, which has so far played in theaters for 14 consecutive weekends, has slowly and steadily earned a cumulative global gross of $1.243 million. While the franchise had some slow going at the beginning, with COVID-related theatrical shutdowns limiting its global reach and longevity for a few years after its launch, it has been back on its feet since 2023 and has had similarly long slow-burn runs (ranging between 14 and 20 weeks) bringing the franchise’s cumulative global haul to $5.4 million at the time of writing.

It is highly unusual for any contemporary movie to play in domestic theaters for that many weekends. In fact, Christopher Nolan’s The Odyssey, which was a record-breaking smash hit, only played in theaters for 15 weekends. Other major 2026 hits had similar runs, with Spider-Man: Brand New Day playing for 14 weekends and Toy Story 5 playing for 15.

Below, see a breakdown of the box office performance and theatrical longevity of every installment in the CatVideoFest franchise:

While it remains to be seen how long CatVideoFest 2026 plays in theaters, it seems highly likely that it will continue the franchise’s trend of each new installment since 2023 grossing more than the last. It only needs to earn about $13,000 more in theaters in order to outgross the 2025 installment, which would take about two more weeks if it manages to earn a similar amount during its next two frames.

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While the CatVideoFest franchise has made a minuscule impact on the box office compared to the billion-dollar Hollywood hits at the top of the charts, the fact that the installments have collectively grossed more than $5 million worldwide is nevertheless remarkable. That is more money than multiple better-heeled projects have made worldwide, including the 2026 sci-fi movie Klara and the Sun ($2.6 million), Adrian Lyne’s 1997 literary adaptation Lolita ($1.1 million, or $2.3 million when adjusted for inflation), and the 2024 Nicolas Cage post-apocalypse movie Arcadian ($1.2 million).

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