Still from the film “Taylor Swift: The Eras Tour.”
TAS rights management
There probably isn’t a top director or star who doesn’t envy Taylor Swift for bypassing the Hollywood studio system and working directly with AMC Theaters to bring her new concert film to the big screen. That way, she could remain in control and not have a studio or independent distributor tell her how to market and distribute her concert film.
Taylor Swift: Eras Tour is certainly an unqualified win after opening to a record $92.8 million domestic and $123.5 million worldwide over the October 13-15 weekend. It’s already the highest-grossing concert film of all time in North America and the second-largest domestic debut in October, not adjusted for inflation.
But questions remain as to why Era’s tour fell short of its expected $100 million opening in North America and $150 million worldwide, and whether millions were left due to the unorthodox release. Some point out the unusual messages surrounding the film (e.g. Swift and AMC encouraging fans to dance and sing while watching the two-hour, 48-minute film). There are also concerns that independent theater communities have been left in the dark about key decisions because of AMC’s unique role as both a distributor and an exhibitor. One thing is pretty certain: Swift and her team were the masterminds behind every step. Another given: The studios will certainly be angry, as they can charge a distribution commission between 8 and 15 percent.
“It’s hard to resist a $90 million opening. I think it’s great for the industry and it’s great for AMC, but there was money left over because it wasn’t done by professionals,” says a studio executive.
David Herrin, founder of film research firm The Quorum, disagrees and says Era’s tour was an unqualified success. “Even if the film had had the full marketing resources of a studio, I’m not sure the audience would have grown. The audience is limited and I feel like she reached everyone.”
spoke with theater and distribution insiders to analyze some of the lessons learned from the Eras tour.
Unfair advantage
When Swift and AMC Theaters announced the concert film on August 31, some consumers may have assumed that AMC would exclusively host Era’s tour. In her original Instagram post revealing the news of the Eras Tour film, Swift tagged AMC (the post has since been edited and no longer has the AMC hashtag).
This theory was born immediately when advance ticket sales in the US for AMC and fellow mega-chains Regal and Cinemark exceeded $37 million in the first 24 hours. AMC’s share was $26 million, a record.
“It was pretty clear that only the top three circuits had extensive knowledge and were able to put their tickets on sale from the start,” says a source at a leading independent circuit. “And that left virtually every other racetrack in America having to scramble and rewrite their schedules, readjust their planning for the coming months, and then have the stress of what if we put tickets on sale and the website collapsed. “So it was a gift from AMC, but it was also complicated and certainly beneficial to them.”
During its opening weekend, AMC proudly boasted that its U.S. locations had an unprecedented 41.5 percent market share, compared to the usual 22 to 25 percent.
“She [AMC] I positioned this film as an exclusive, which is something you never want to do. As a distributor, you cost total sales. “A studio doesn’t know who’s selling the tickets,” says a Hollywood sales veteran.
Sold out! (But not really)
A week before Eras opened, AMC issued a press release announcing that global presales had exceeded $100 million across all distribution channels. This may have led to the misconception that a consumer could not get a ticket to the opening weekend. (Disney’s marketing machine faced a similar problem with Star Wars: The Force Awakens and went out of its way to get the message out there that there were plenty of seats left.)
According to the exhibition source, ticket sales for the Eras Tour began to noticeably stagnate around the same time. “You would expect a film that sells so many tickets to trend upwards, but it was so front-and-center. So when it comes to concert films, the demand is like a concert where so much happens [when tickets first go on sale] that it is top-heavy in a way. We’ve definitely sold a lot of tickets for the next few weeks. But since it doesn’t behave like a normal film, it’s hard to say how it will work.”
Non-refundable tickets Irk Swifties
Era’s tour was originally scheduled to premiere on October 13th at 6pm local time (Swift’s lucky number is 13). Late on October 11th, just before heading to the film’s world premiere in Los Angeles, Swift announced that, thanks to tremendous demand, the film would instead open on October 12th at 6 p.m. Some Swifties quickly took to X (formerly known as Twitter) to complain that they couldn’t rebook their tickets from Friday evening to Thursday without paying twice. (No one can remember another case where a movie ticket was non-refundable.)
“Some of these [Thursday] The shows were doing well, and some were a ghost town. There are all these fans who bought tickets to what they thought was the first show [and] Many of them would end up in a fairly quiet theater. It was framed as if [Taylor Swift] “I just decided that day, but I would be shocked if that were the case,” says the source of the exhibition.
The Thursday shows generated $2.8 million in gross sales, compared to $22 million in previews for Barbie. The traditional play pattern for a studio event picture like Barbie goes like this: Hold previews on Thursday evening before expanding everywhere on Thursday morning. If a studio were to distribute Eras, it would be unlikely that they would agree to a Friday start time of 6 p.m
“I know the first few shows didn’t hurt the grosses, but they didn’t bring a good reputation to the theaters. “They were caught off guard,” says the studio distributor, pointing out that theaters had to increase staff at the last minute on Thursday.
Leave the dancing to us
Swift’s fan base includes many adults, but only 18 percent of those who came to the Eras Tour on opening weekend were 35 and older, including 9 percent 45 and older. According to a Morning Concert poll conducted in March, 21 percent of those who described themselves as Swift fans were members of the generation
Additionally, according to PostTrak, the audience was 79 percent female and 70 percent white, leading some to question whether a broader audience would not have been reached if a studio had run a traditional marketing campaign. This is especially true when it comes to the gender breakdown, as according to Morning Consult, 48 percent of Swift’s fans are male (according to Morning Consult, 74 percent of her fan base is white). “Basically, it appealed to younger white women,” says another studio sales source. “We could have done something marketing-wise to attract more people.”
The singer and AMC encouraged fans to dance and sing as much as they wanted. Images of such opening weekend activities quickly spread on social media. But some moviegoers weren’t so happy with the noisy environment and took to social media to voice their displeasure. “Older adults in particular may have been put off by it and decided to stop watching it,” says the studio manager.
Playing the board game (or managing expectations).)
Several weeks before a film’s release, various tracking services release their opening weekend predictions. Hollywood studios are notorious for discounting a film’s scheduled opening in case it doesn’t match the shot. In the case of Era’s tour, it was the other way around. AMC went with a domestic estimate of $100 million, while at least one major tracking service was far more conservative, suggesting $75 million. (To be fair to AMC, most assumed it would gross $110 million to $125 million domestically based on advance ticket sales.)
The discrepancy is now clear to sales managers: There was virtually no walk-up business all weekend. “In the case of Barbie, I looked at her even though I didn’t play with her as a child and she wasn’t around me either. But I wanted to see what Grossgerwig did with the property. This sense of discovery is missing from a concert film,” says Herrin.
All eyes are now on the Eras Tour’s performance in its second weekend. Most expect it to triumph over Martin Scorsese’s “Killers of the Flower Moon,” which hits theaters Friday. Should there be a precipitous fall, it would be another lesson for the industry and for AMC’s foray into distribution, which includes the Dec. 1 release of Beyoncé’s upcoming concert film, “Renaissance: A Film by Beyoncé.”
“There will be more of that next year as everyone tries to get the same money. Overall, I’m definitely glad it happened because it was a gift of a big premiere number that draws people to the theater. But I think there is still a lot to learn and think about in the coming weeks and months,” says the exhibition’s source.
Comscore chief box office analyst Paul Dergarabedian adds: “The additional nearly $100 million in domestic box office that the Swift concert film adds to the bottom line will ultimately be worth the stress caused by the unprecedented and unique release of this one Weekends are created.”