The Cat in the Hat script, with Chris Meledandri as producer, and Audrey Geisel as the executive producer. However, the project never came to fruition. On January 24, 2018, it was announced that Warner Animation Group was in development of a different animated "Cat in the Hat" film as part of a creative partnership with Seuss Enterprises. In 2009, the Royal National Theatre created a stage version of the book, adapted and directed by Katie Mitchell. "Seussical", a musical adaptation that incorporates aspects of many Dr. Seuss works, features the Cat in the Hat as narrator. The musical received weak reviews when it opened, in
The Cat in the Hat words he found that rhymed. The words he found were "cat" and "hat". The book was met with immediate critical and commercial success. Reviewers praised it as an exciting alternative to traditional primers. Three years after its debut, the book had already sold over a million copies, and in 2001 "Publishers Weekly" listed the book at number nine on its list of best-selling children's books of all time. The book's success led to the creation of Beginner Books, a publishing house centered on producing similar books for young children learning to read. In 1983, Geisel said, "It is the book