Taylor Swift pauses between songs during her first sold-out concert of three nights at AT&T Stadium in Arlington, Texas, in March.
Fort Price Star-telegram | Tribune News Service | Getty Images
LOS ANGELES – Taylor Swift modified the music industry. Now she’s coming for the flicks.
The cinema industry is in a state of flux. Audience tastes have shifted and dual Hollywood strikes have only acerbated pandemic-related production delays that left the movie calendar sparse.
With would-be blockbusters fleeing the autumn and winter slate, a direct results of strike rules that prevent top talent from promoting upcoming movies, movie show chains like AMC, Regal and Cinemark are desperately in search of unique offerings. Even IMAX, which began as place to screen documentaries and academic programming, stands to learn from alternative theatrical content.
“The necessity has been there for a few years, becoming more apparent in the course of the early pandemic recovery era when audiences began coming back but there wasn’t enough big screen content ready for release on a weekly basis,” said Shawn Robbins, chief analyst at BoxOffice.com.
Enter Swift.
Despite placing her previous documentaries and concert movies on streaming services up to now, the enduring pop star opted to deliver her Eras Tour film on to cinemagoers this October. The filmed concert is already breaking records for movie theaters and is predicted to top $100 million during its opening weekend.
Swift is a member of the Screen Actors Guild and American Federation of Television and Radio Artists, but she was granted a waiver by the unions since the Eras Tour filmed concert is unscripted and does has no actors or writers related to it.
The Taylor Swift effect
The theater industry isn’t any stranger to alternative content. Cinemas often show taped concert events, plays and musicals, in addition to live sports from organizations just like the National Football League and Ultimate Fighting Championship. Then there are showings of classic movies, anime screenings and live-broadcast Dungeons and Dragons games.
But none of those have ever come near generating the fervor circling Swift’s upcoming release.
The thrill, which has led movie theaters to design specialty popcorn buckets, create boutique cocktails and even arrange friendship bracelet-making tables, illustrates there is a hunger for making something larger and more memorable out of a visit to the flicks.
Only recently, audiences were drawn en masse to see big-budgeted superhero flicks on opening weekend. The urgency was driven by a have to see what happens next in the large tapestry of storytelling and a worry that not seeing it as soon as possible would risk spoiler reveals.
Sony and Marvel’s “Spider-Man: No Way Home,” released in late 2021, is one such film. Nevertheless, few superhero movies that followed drummed up that very same enthusiasm, likely because there was a glut of content, much of which was considered lackluster. Disney and Marvel’s “Ant-Man and the Wasp: Quantumania,” and DC’s “The Flash” and “Blue Beetle” all underwhelmed on the box office this 12 months.
Then got here Barbenheimer.
Warner Bros.’ “Barbie” and Universal’s “Oppenheimer,” two movies on the alternative spectrum of cinematic experiences, opened on the identical weekend in July. The mix of the releases thrilled audiences, bringing thousands and thousands out to cinemas to see double features. Clad in pink or donning fedoras, audiences drove the 2 movies to set attendance records. They’re still making big money, too. “Barbie” has cleared $600 million on the domestic box office, while historical drama “Oppenheimer” has garnered greater than $300 million.
Following the early days of the pandemic, consumers have gravitated more toward experiences out of the home. With so many streaming options, audiences need a reason to go away their couches beyond just content. For this reason, communal experiences that may only be experienced outside the house are more essential than ever to the theatrical industry.
It’s why when Swift first unveiled that her concert film was coming to the three major theaters — AMC, Regal and Cinemark — on Oct. 13, dozens of smaller theater chains sought to also showcase the film. It is also why Universal opted to remove “Exorcist: Believer” from the identical release date and move it to Oct. 6, killing the short-lived hope for a Barbenheimer-type Exorswift double feature event.
“True nationwide releases can have a meaningful impact,” Robbins said. “Even when Taylor Swift may prove to set a really high bar, it isn’t hard to assume the potential success of more concert events with superstars like Beyonce or Adele, major sporting events screened in premium formats, synergistic promotional campaigns, and diverse other specialty release ideas.”
In a rare move, Swift opted to distribute the film through AMC, not a standard studio partner. It is predicted that the 43% of ticket proceeds will remain with theaters and 57% shall be split between Swift and AMC. Swift will likely keep a big chunk of that share, in response to industry insiders.
After all, the theater company will generate significantly greater than that in concession sales, perhaps the actual upside to Swift’s film release. The theater chair is already promoting collectible popcorn tubs for $14.99 and cups for $11.99.
AMC, particularly, needs this type of revenue, as the corporate continues to spend more on film licensing costs and theater rentals than it makes in ticket and concession sales. In truth, the corporate only recently posted a profit during its second quarter this 12 months, having generated net income of just $8.6 million.
Ultimately, box office analysts foresee the film snatching around $400 million during its run. Only “Barbie” and “The Super Mario Bros. Movie” have grossed greater than that domestically this 12 months.
A latest era for concert movies?
The theater industry hopes Swift reinvigorates the concert genre, which blossomed within the Nineteen Sixties and Nineteen Seventies with movies like “Monterey Pop,” “Woodstock” and “The Last Waltz.” And while movies cannot fully replicate the experience of attending a concert, cinema tickets are quite a bit cheaper.
Tickets for Swift’s Eras Tour were priced at $49 to $450, with VIP packages starting at $199 and reaching $899. Nevertheless, on the secondary market many tickets sold for hundreds of dollars each. Tickets for her filmed concert start at $19.89 for adults and $13.13 for youths. Tickets for premium format screens like IMAX and Dolby come at a better cost.
For comparison, average adult ticket prices for normal film releases in 2023 have ranged from $11 to $14 a bit for normal formats.
“Concert movies have seen outstanding results over time, and now based on massive pre-sales across the country, it’s clear that The Eras Tour will break latest ground for the genre,” said Michael O’Leary, CEO of the National Association of Theatre Owners. “We hope it will lead to much more concert movies in theaters within the years to come back.”
For probably the most part, filmed concert events have had extremely limited runs in theater — typically, one night or simply one weekend. And most appeared in lower than 1,000 locations, in response to Comscore data. For comparison, a large release is taken into account greater than 2,000 locations during opening weekend. Most blockbuster features are released in greater than 4,000.
“In the trendy era, the traditionally released concert film that plays for as much as just a few weeks in theaters has taken a back seat to the very fashionable event cinema model of a really limited availability of just just a few days or perhaps a single night on the massive screen,” said Paul Dergarabedian, senior media analyst at Comscore. “Taylor Swift, being a cultural powerhouse and shaper of recent business models, can have a hand in bringing back the old-school style concert film.”
Swift’s concert film seems destined to overtake the present record holder for a theatrical concert film. Miley Cyrus’ “Better of Each Worlds” concert film tallied $31.1 million during its opening weekend back in 2008, appearing in around 680 locations. It ultimately snared $70 million globally during a 15 week run, in response to Comscore data.
Taylor Swift performs in Cincinnati, Ohio, June 30, 2023, during her Eras tour.
Taylor Hill/tas23 | Getty Images Entertainment | Getty Images
The entire variety of theaters offering Swift’s Eras Tour is not going to be available until about per week before the film is about for release. Nevertheless, box office analysts expect it can be considered a large release and will have as many locations as a blockbuster feature.
And there is precedent for such a lot of theaters and the eight-week future. Notably, Justin Bieber’s “Never Say Never” tour film launched in 3,000 cinemas in early 2011 and ran for 13 weeks. It tallied $99 million globally. Similarly, the Michael Jackson documentary and concert film “This Is It” was released in 3,400 theaters in 2009 and generated $263.5 million globally during its five week run.
“We have screened Metallica and it sold out super quick,” said Michael Kustermann, CEO of Alamo Drafthouse. “We have obviously done a ton of K-Pop things up to now they usually’ve sold out super quick. I believe what Taylor Swift goes to do is sort of open up the query of, well, should these be a couple of night one weekend?”
After all, most concede that Swift is an outlier within the industry and her success on the box office might not be easily replicated.
“Lest anyone think that is an easily replicable feat, you have to first understand that Swift is working a singular universe of her own and that this makes future successes for other artists on this realm a more elusive goal than one might imagine,” Dergarabedian said.
Still, interest in unique cinematic experiences and communal events is growing and Swift’s concert film might be only the start.
“I’ve at all times said, and I have been on this business for over 40 years, that Hollywood is a copycat industry,” said Ray Nutt, CEO of Fathom Events.
Fathom has long brought entertainment events like shows from the Metropolitan Opera, comedy shows and sports to cinemas. It also schedules screenings of movies around release anniversaries in addition to genre-based showings for faith-based audiences, anime fans and horror junkies.
The corporate is about to bring a filmed version of Sara Bareilles’ Broadway hit “Waitress” to cinemas in December.
“Individuals are in search of various things to go to theaters for,” Nutt said.
Disclosure: Comcast is the parent company of NBCUniversal and CNBC. NBCUniversal distributed “Oppenheimer.”