Taylor Swift Struts In to Save the October Box Office

Just two months ago it seemed that “Barbenheimer” would mark the last huge event-release movie theaters would see for the foreseeable future. But thanks to AMC Theaters and Taylor Swift, this weekend is set to be the shot in the arm the box office needed with the release of the pop star’s “Eras” concert film.

With over $100 million already in the bag from worldwide presales, Swift is expected to challenge the October domestic opening weekend record currently held by “Joker” with $96 million.

Currently, independent trackers are conservatively projecting a mere $85 million, while exhibitors who spoke to TheWrap believe the film will become the first October release to exceed $100 million, with the most optimistic predictions topping out at $125 million.

To help stem the instability the ongoing actors strike is wreaking on the box office, AMC reached a deal in August with Swift’s team to distribute the film directly via a partnership with Variance Films, with theaters receiving 43% of the ticket grosses.

AMC inked a similar deal with Beyoncé to release her concert film during the usually slow post-Thanksgiving weekend. In the case of both pop stars, the immense cultural and social media footprint they hold should allow the films to become big events without the need for a traditional studio marketing campaign.

Part of the reason why projections range so widely is because the industry has never seen a concert film perform like this in presales. “Eras” is expected to make more this weekend than any concert film has made in its entire theatrical run. The current domestic record for a concert film belongs to “Justin Bieber: Never Say Never,” which grossed $73 million when Paramount released it in 2011.

It’s clear that Swift’s fans see this film as a true event in the same vein as an “Avengers” film for Marvel fans or the pop star’s own concerts, and that has led them to buy tickets as quickly as they can. Trackers are having a harder time estimating how many Swift fans will buy walk-up tickets for screenings that haven’t yet sold out.

With no Thursday previews or Friday matinees, “the numbers that we are seeing will come from screenings that start after 6 p.m.,” said Comscore analyst Paul Dergarabedian. “There really are no comps for this on so many levels that it is so hard to gauge the walk-up traffic.”

Another uncertainty — but something exhibitors are also optimistic about — is the legs that Swift fans will give this film. As seen countless times, including with recent hits like “Barbie” and “The Super Mario Bros. Movie,” films that strike a chord with millions can have replay value with those moviegoers for a month or longer.

The allure of “Eras” is that it will allow Swifties who recently saw the pop star on tour — or didn’t have the time or money to buy a pricey ticket — to enjoy the concert experience in a movie theater. If that experience is everything those fans hoped for, they may well come back to theaters multiple times on the weekends to come relive it.

That’s why studio distribution execs tell TheWrap that they expect “Eras” to finish its run somewhere in the $200-250 million range in North America, filling the hole in the tentpole release calendar left behind by Warner Bros./Legendary’s “Dune: Part Two” when its release date moved from this November to March 2024.

Without Swift, theaters would have faced a miserable October that could have seen business slow down as much as it did this time of year in 2022. Films like Paramount/Apple’s “Killers of the Flower Moon” and Universal/Blumhouse’s “Five Nights at Freddy” will provide secondary support, but without “The Eras,” the box office likely would have gone more than two months without a weekend in which overall grosses exceeded $100 million.

Currently, the last weekend where overall totals topped the century mark was Aug. 11-13, which fittingly enough was also the last weekend in which “Barbie” was the No. 1 film.

For at least the next two weekends, “Eras” should boost theatrical revenue back to prime summer moviegoing levels and, just as importantly, allow studios to get trailers for end-of-year tentpoles like “Trolls Band Together,” “Wish,” “The Marvels,” and “Wonka” in front of a massive audience. At a time when the SAG-AFTRA strike has left studio marketing teams without actors to promote their titles, Swift’s boost to Hollywood may prove to ripple out into the holiday season.

The post Taylor Swift Struts In to Save the October Box Office appeared first on TheWrap.