She hasn’t finished her triumphant tour when Taylor Swift is already releasing a documentary about her concerts that could galvanize a recovering film industry, challenge studio hegemony and consecrate her economic empire.
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The feature film “Taylor Swift: The Eras Tour” broke the record for pre-sales in the USA in one day at the end of August with sales of 37 million dollars.
According to Jeff Bock of specialist firm Exhibitor Relations, it could top 100 million during its first weekend of operation, October 13-15.
“It’s possible that it will be the biggest film of the fall (…), which is pretty incredible,” explains the analyst, even if the filmed concert will temporarily only be shown in the USA.
One sign that studios are dreading this release is the fact that they have postponed the theatrical release of several films that were originally scheduled for the same weekend or on a close date, most notably The Exorcist: Devotion.
Not content with producing her film without going through Hollywood, which is barely recovering from the pandemic and facing an ongoing strike by actors and screenwriters, Taylor Swift also took the liberty of making it less than a month and a half before its release.
For the thirty-year-old, whose feature film only cost $10 to $20 million, according to the information site Puck, the operation already promises to be worth it.
According to trade site Billboard, it will share 57% of ticket sales with cinema chain AMC, a share similar to what the studios normally receive.
“No artist today is as powerful,” Ralph Jaccodine, a professor at Berklee Music University, told AFP.
“Eras” is, first of all, a monster tour that currently includes 146 dates.
According to performing arts magazine Pollstar, each concert generates $13 million in sales, bringing total sales to around $1.9 billion.
No artist or group has ever exceeded the symbolic billion dollar threshold.
“Tours where people have to pay $700 to $800 for a seat in the back of the stadium have never happened,” emphasizes Ralph Jaccodine.
“A previous”
“She is very bold strategically,” said Carolyn Sloane, a professor of economics at the University of Chicago. “She has a lot to lose (…), but she can afford to take risks.”
The most prominent example before the film was the artist’s re-recording of her first six albums, where she did not own the rights to the original recordings.
“I think artists should own their work,” she said in 2019 after unsuccessfully trying to buy the tapes.
“She’s an artist’s rights activist,” says Ralph Jaccodine. “She was building her own brand… and each time she became more successful, she took more and more control.”
Thanks to her music alone, Taylor Swift is getting closer every day to becoming the first billionaire singer (her net worth is estimated at $740 million by Forbes).
Before her, Prince, George Michael, Jay-Z and Kanye West had fought to have their recordings restored, but none had thought to produce a new version.
“She has a brilliant economic strategy and goes where other artists have never dared,” emphasizes Carolyn Sloane.
Taylor Swift did not hesitate to make an event out of the release of each of her old, re-recorded albums, even at the risk of boring the audience.
A successful bet that allowed him to unite the youngest part of his audience, who did not know the periods of “Taylor Swift” or “Fearless”, his first works.
In the same way, “Eras,” the film, “will give access to his concert to people who couldn’t buy a ticket,” describes Ralph Jaccodine.
Other musicians and singers have already released concert or tour films in cinemas, but “we have never seen a film by an artist at the height of their popularity in cinemas, as we will see with Swift in October,” expects Jeff Bock.