Bodeen found that as the story progressed the audience calmed and became more involved in the film. By late October, Lewton and Tourneur were already shooting their next film together, I Walked with a Zombie. Release Cat People had its premiere at the Rialto Theatre in Manhattan on December 5, 1942. It was released regionally the following day in New York City. Cat People was popular for its first two weeks at the Rialto Theatre, where it took in $17,000. In comparison, The Wolf Man grossed $19,500 at the same theatre in December 1941. The film received a wide release on December 25, where it was distributed by RKO Radio Pictures. It held its Los Angeles premiere on January 14, 1943, at the Hawaii Theater, where it broke the attendance record. It was reissued theatrically in 1952 by RKO. The film's box office receipts are disputed. Film historian Edmund Bansak has estimated the box office for Cat People at $4 million domestically and $4 million in foreign markets. Film historians Chris Fujiwara and Joel Siegel also put the domestic box office at $4 million. Variety estimated its rentals in 1943 as $1.2 million. Mank stated that RKO files report that domestic rentals were $360,000, foreign rentals were $175,000 leading to a total of $535,000 and a profit of $183,000. Mank notes that rentals are not equivalent to gross revenue, and assuming that the revenue was split evenly between theaters and the studio, the film grossed over $1 million. Mank writes that this was still "excellent business", comparing it to the profit of RKO's The Falcon's Brother, which had worldwide rentals of $361,000. Home media RKO Home Video released the film home video in 1986 as part of their horror series. It was released on laserdisc by the Voyager Company as part of The Criterion Collection in 1995. This release contained an audio commentary from Eder, trailers for other Val Lewton titles and his filmography and production stills, lobby cards and production photos. In the United States, Cat People and its sequel, The Curse of the Cat People, were issued in 2005 as a double feature DVD or as part of the Val Lewton Horror Collection DVD box set. In December 2016, Cat People was reissued on DVD and Blu-ray by The Criterion Collection. This Blu-ray was from a new digital transfer created at 2K resolution from a 35mm safety fine-grain