Taylor Swift has more good news for both her fans and movie theater owners. On social media, the pop star announced that her concert film, “Taylor Swift: The Eras Tour,” will hit theaters a day early on Thursday, with additional screenings being added throughout the weekend in theaters nationwide.
Tickets for the new Thursday evening screenings will go on sale at 10 a.m. ET that day on AMC Theaters’ website and on the sites of other theaters screening the film.
“The Eras Tour” has already sold more than $100 million in presales worldwide, and is expected to be the largest domestic box office opening ever in the month of October. The current monthly record belongs to “Joker” with a $96 million opening in October 2019.
Prior to Swift’s announcement, exhibition sources told TheWrap that they expected “The Eras Tour” to earn as much as $125 million this weekend, more than any concert film has made in its entire theatrical run. Those estimates will surely leap even higher now that another evening of nationwide screenings starting at 6 p.m. Thursday are being added to the slate.
“The Eras Tour” marks an unprecedented instance of a major event release being distributed directly by a theater chain, as AMC Theaters is handling release of the film via a partnership with Variance Films.
The deal between Swift’s team and AMC allowed the pop star to present her concert to fans who were unable to see her recent sold-out tour in person, while AMC and other exhibitors will receive 43% of ticket sales in what is expected to be one of the highest grossing films of the year, even as it is only slated to screen on four weekends with no weekday showings scheduled.
That influx of moviegoers from Swift’s fanbase will be a much-needed lifeline for movie theaters, whose box office outlook for the end of 2023 and early 2024 have been thrown into uncertainty thanks to the ongoing SAG-AFTRA strike and just-resolved WGA strike, which have caused some films like Sony’s “Kraven the Hunter” and Warner Bros./Legendary’s “Dune: Part Two” to move into next year.
