The Cat in the Hat been adapted for various media, including theater, television, and film. The animated musical TV special premiered in 1971 and starred Allan Sherman as the Cat. In 2003, a live-action film adaptation was released, starring Mike Myers as the Cat. Boxoffice.com reports that the film grossed $133,960,541 worldwide on an estimated $109 million budget. In 2012, following the financial success of "The Lorax", the animated film adaptation of the Dr. Seuss book of the same name, Universal Pictures and Illumination Entertainment announced plans to produce a CGI adaptation of "The Cat in the Hat". Rob Lieber was set to write the
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