Beyoncé Livens Up Sleepy Thanksgiving Weekend In Hollywood As ‘Renaissance’ Makes Splashy World Premiere

UPDATED: We’ve all heard of the first screenings for Oscar contending movies during Thanksgiving weekend, i.e. American Hustle and Joy in years past, however, to literally hold a glittery world premiere post-Turkey day is a rare feat. But that’s exactly what 32x Grammy winner Beyoncé did tonight with her AMC-distributed concert documentary movie Renaissance: A Film by Beyoncé which made its grand debut at the Academy’s Samuel Goldwyn Theater.

While AMC had The Grove shut down for the world premiere of their first distributed concert movie, Taylor Swift: The Eras Tour (which is headed to $250M WW) back in mid-October, that wasn’t an option given the busy holiday season; that Rick Caruso high-end outdoor shopping mall already occupied by Santa Claus and a Christmas tree. We had heard that there was no feasible way that the Beyoncé doc could play an AMC cinema here in LA due to premiere logistics, hence in the wee hours of last night, it was made known that the Dreamgirls star and Oscar-nominated King Richard songwriter’s Renaissance, directed, written and produced by the songstress herself, would make its grand debut at the Samuel Goldwyn.

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The screening of the concert film did not begin until 38 minutes after the scheduled time of 7PM, and Beyoncé was escorted in quickly after the film began, and rushed out after it ended, making no introductions or post-screening remarks to the starry audience which also happened to pull in Janelle Monáe, Lizzo, Halle Bailey, Tyler Perry, Kris Jenner and more on a weekend when we’re all shopping. We heard that ushers at the event, which were AMC employees from the LA-area, had to clear the floor completely when Beyonce made her entrance into the venue.

For AMC’s second premiere, it was a different affair from Swift’s: the West Reading, PA native made introductions to all of the auditoriums at AMC’s The Grove before each screening, and signed autographs and took selfies with mobs of Swifties before her premiere began.

A London premiere of Renaissance is expected to happen next week. The movie opens worldwide on Friday, Dec. 1, and is expected stateside to debut at $20M. While that is far off from the domestic opening for Eras Tour, we knew that all along and that is due to the different demos for Swift and Beyonce. Swift pulls in young women while Beyonce skews older.

Also in attendance tonight were AMC Boss Adam Aron, Neicy Nash Betts, Gabrielle Union, Shangela, Ava DuVernay, Michaela Jaé Rodriguez, and many more. Take a look at some of the entrances in the videos posted below.

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