Kevin Winter/TAS23/Getty Images for TAS Rights Management
UPDATE AFTER EXCLUSIVE: AMC reports that the concert film “Taylor Swift: The Eras Tour” grossed a whopping $26 million in advance sales, beating the previous record set by “Spider-Man: No Way Home,” which grossed $16.9 million. Let’s write that again – this huge presale number is just for AMC. It doesn’t apply to the entire industry and other circuits like Regal, Cinemark and Harkins – meaning the number is significantly higher. However, note that AMC represents the largest theatrical presence in the domestic BO
AMC reports that less than three hours after tickets went on sale for “Taylor Swift: The Eras Tour,” the record set by “Spider-Man: No Way Home” has already been broken. The film will air at least four times a day on AMC on Thursday, Friday, Saturday and Sunday as the series launches over four weekends.
MORE…
EXCLUSIVE: Since going on sale this morning at 7:15 a.m. CT, advance ticket sales for the AMC concert film “Taylor Swift: The Eras Tour” are well over $10 million and counting, sources have told us. At the end of the day, these presales numbers will be well above what we’re seeing. Swift’s pre-sales here bury the box office take of Trafalgar’s BST: Yet to Come, which brought in $8 million earlier this year.
Watch a trailer for The Eras Tour, which hits theaters in October, below.
This huge advance sales figure for the picture’s four-weekend run has sales managers falling out of their chairs – and reaching for their Just computers. They’re trying to figure out how this concert film, distributed to the top three theaters and possibly more, will do on opening weekend, largely based on a marketing campaign that’s spread from theaters’ social media and email blasts Loyalty clubs are driven and Swift itself.
RELATED: Movie release calendar for 2023
What does The Eras Tour actually offer in advance?
“Some Marvel movie,” adds a distribution guru.
Disney
You’re right: Days before Eternals opened, the presale was at $13 million. But the Eras Tour is on its way to get even crazier. Remember, Star Wars: The Force Awakens grossed $20 million on its first day of pre-sales – nine weeks after its release date in 2015!
RELATED: Taylor Swift Announces Additional 2024 North American Eras Tour Dates
“The Best of Both Worlds” concert
Certainly AMC does not have the marketing spend of a major studio such as Disney, Sony and Paramount, which have shown their respective docu-concert films in large numbers, e.g. B. Hannah Montana and Miley Cyrus: Best of Both Worlds Concert ($31 million opening). , $65.2 million finale in 2008), Michael Jackson’s This Is It ($23.2 million, $72 million in 2009) and Justin Bieber: Never Say Never ($29.5 million -dollar opening, $73 million domestically in 2011).
“They don’t need that,” exclaimed a sales executive today about the picture’s P&A editions. “All AMC needs is for Taylor Swift to post about the film to her fans on social media.”
AMC said in an advance release that it would limit screening times of other Hollywood films due to the presence of the Swift film, for which a separate movie ticket sales portal has been set up to meet popular demand. Additionally, AMC Stubs members do not receive priority treatment when it comes to movie ID or immediate queue access.
See more
The Eras tour has been the most meaningful, electrifying experience of my life so far and I’m so excited to announce that it’s coming to the big screen soon 😆 Starting October 13th, you can experience the concert film in theaters across North America! Tickets are on sale now at… pic.twitter.com/eKRqS8C7d1
— Taylor Swift (@taylorswift13) August 31, 2023
Get this: A box office analyst predicts ‘The Eras Tour’ has the potential to open bigger than Hannah Montana’s $31 million. “Taylor has a broader fan base, while the other film was a Disney Channel program for little girls,” the source said.
What makes this pre-recorded concert film, reportedly shot at LA’s SoFi Stadium in August, a must-see is the fact that Swift’s concert tickets are hard to come by. Billboard estimates that the Eras Tour grossed nearly $600 million, making it the highest-grossing concert outing by a female artist, while Bloomberg estimates that the average Swift concert grosses an average of $13 million per stop in a U.S. city. The global outlook for the entire Eras Tour is $1.4 billion.
Taylor Swift: The Eras Concert will play October 13-15, 19-22, 26-29 and 31 and November 2-5 at AMC, Regal, Cinemark in Dolby and Imax. Tickets are priced at $19.89 and $13.13 – the former a nod to the title of her 2014 album and the latter a nod to Swift’s self-described lucky number.
With Swift at its side, AMC has the best guerrilla marketing machine available, coupled with the ability to target concert moviegoers through the AMC Stubs Club, not to mention theatrical trailers. This is a similar marketing plan for the other racetracks and their loyalty clubs. It remains to be seen whether smaller circuits will book the Eras tour, but I’m told AMC is getting calls.
“Based on these pre-sales, the exhibitions will be complete,” said another sales executive.
The concert film “Taylor Swift: The Eras Tour” won’t compete with Universal/Blumhouse/Morgan Creek’s “The Exorcist: Believer” in its opening weekend, as that female-centric horror film moves to October 6 just minutes after the Deadline story was published was postponed. However, Swift will face Lionsgate’s Ordinary Angels on October 13th, then Apple/Paramount’s Killers of the Flower Moon on October 20th, and Uni/Blumhouse’s theatrical date Five Nights at Freddy’s on October 27th. The Eras Tour is really the only major release on the first weekend of November, while Dune: Part Two is now out in March 2024.
AMC, which hired Variance Films to book the film, did not respond to Deadline’s request for comment on the Swift presale.