Taylor Swift Is Set To Make History At The Box Office With Her Eras Tour Concert Film
The fall season has been off to a relatively slow start at the box office. September can be a bit of a dead-ish month, but this year saw solid hits such as "The Nun II" and "The Equalizer 3." Even so, theater owners could use a big breakout blockbuster hit. Well, they're about to get just that, and it's Taylor Swift to the rescue. The mega pop star is set to bring her latest arena tour to theaters next weekend with "Taylor Swift: The Eras Tour," which was announced at the end of August scarcely over a month ago. But Swift didn't need any more time to carve a record-breaking path for her much-anticipated concert film.
Despite the fact that the promotional campaign for the film has felt a little muted, it appears that hasn't hurt ticket sales one bit. Swifties are perfectly capable of rising to the occasion on their own. Case in point, "The Eras Tour" is set to debut to at least $100 million domestically, with Deadline saying it could go as high as $125 million. Even that number might be on the conservative side though, as hard as that may be to believe, as Box Office Pro has Swift's big-screen concert event taking in as much as $155 million on its opening weekend.
This would be by far the biggest opening weekend for any film since "Barbie" opened to $162 million in late July en route to becoming one of the highest-grossing movies of all time with a $1.43 billion global finish. Much like "Barbie" and "Oppenheimer" saved the summer movie season with the whole Barbenheimer phenomenon, Swift seems poised to be the savior of the fall season. It's difficult to speculate as to how much money Swift's film could pull in for its entire run, but it's safe to say that even if it drops off a cliff in its second weekend (which it probably won't), we could be looking at one of the biggest movies of the year.
History in the making
To crack the top ten worldwide, the film would need to make more than $476 million to overtake "Ant-Man and the Wasp: Quantumania." That seems well within reach. It simply cannot be overstated just how remarkable this is shaping up to be. In the pandemic era, openings of $100 million or more are as rare as white whales and even many superhero movies fail to hit that mark (or get anywhere near it for that matter), despite being surefire bets for well over a decade now.
The fact that a concert film is poised to have perhaps the second-largest opening of the year is downright hard to wrap one's head around. Yes, Taylor Swift is a force to be reckoned with, as her Eras Tour concerts are estimated to pull in $2.2 billion from ticket sales alone. But she's not the first megastar to release a concert film in theaters.
Michael Jackson currently holds the global box office record with 2009's "This is It," which pulled in $261 million. Domestically, the record-holder is "Justin Bieber: Never Say Never," which made $73 million total in North America, topping out at $99 million worldwide. Swift is going to easily eclipse that number in a single weekend. "The Eras Tour" already broke the single-day sales record for AMC, beating "Spider-Man: No Way Home" — a movie that, it's worth mentioning, went on to earn $1.9 billion worldwide. It's also important to point out that the film is getting a global rollout, meaning that its domestic number is just the tip of the iceberg.
Swift's concert film set a pre-sale record for Cinemark. It certainly doesn't hurt that theaters are charging a premium ticket price of $19.89, which is priced in honor of Swift's hit album "1989." Fans, it seems, are happy to pay that price. It's a heck of a lot cheaper than an actual concert ticket.
Taylor Swift is shaking up the movie business
Theaters are also benefitting by selling exclusive merch, such as cups and popcorn buckets. One imagines those are going to sell like crazy as well. It's all revenue the theaters are happy to have. But there's one theater chain that is benefitting far more than anyone else in this whole deal: AMC Theatres.
Not only is AMC the largest theater chain in the world, making it an automatic massive benefactor here, but the company actually cut a deal to distribute the film as well. This is highly unusual, but Swift's camp liked what AMC had to offer as opposed to traditional studios such as Universal. Not only does AMC get a massive bump in ticket sales, but they don't have to pay a studio to be the middleman. They're just splitting the pot with Swift, and they're also going to get a cut from "Eras Tour" tickets that other theaters sell. And any theater that carries the film has to do so for a minimum of four weeks, so this isn't some limited engagement thing. This movie could put butts in seats for a full month, if not more. If this works, expect to see AMC and other theaters explore distribution more in the future. This could be a game-changer.
We're already seeing similar deals come to light. Beyoncé recently revealed that she is releasing a film about her "Renaissance" tour in theaters this December, and she has also cut a deal with AMC to do so. It remains to be seen how much pull Beyoncé will have in terms of selling tickets, but one imagines it's going to be a significant draw as well. Not only could "The Eras Tour" wind up being one of the highest-grossing movies of the year (especially if Swifties show up en masse overseas as well), but it could have ripple effects in the industry for years to come.
"Taylor Swift: The Eras Tour" concert film hits theaters on October 13, 2023.