Cats: Cinemagoers walk out of new film after barrage of negative reviews

According to one viewer, a man was applauded for his decision to leave the cinema

Cats is said to be so “shockingly bad” that it’s prompting walkouts from cinemagoers.

The rushed Universal film – which has been tweaked by director Tom Hooper after some mistakes were spotted – may have been panned by critics, but the studio was hoping it would be embraced by audiences.

However, the film – which had an estimated budget of $85m-100m ​(£65m-77m) – has been a box-office bomb, grossing just over $6m (£4.6m) in its first weekend of release in the US.

Now, numerous messages posted on Twitter reveal people hated the film so much, they were forced to leave the cinema – some as early as 15 minutes in.

“The best part of our showing of Cats was about two-third of the way through when a man in the audience stood up, said ‘this movie is bad and I’m leaving’, and walked out while everyone applauded him,” one user wrote.

Another added: “Still trying to think of words (any word, really) I can use to describe Cats, but until I do, please know that five groups walked out of our theatre before it was over.”

One Twitter user said: “I really don’t think you can understand how freaky and wrong it is until you see it.”

Cats – an adaptation of Andrew Lloyd Webber’s successful musical – stars Jennifer Hudson, Idris Elba, James Corden, Judi Dench and Taylor Swift.

You can see a selection of these tweets below.

Cats is in cinemas now – read our verdict here and then find a ranking of the feline characters, from least to most embarrassing, here.

Following its mauling by critics, which included a zero-star review, the film grossed just $2.6m (£1.9m) on its opening day.