Taylor Swift performs in Denver during her Eras Tour, July 14, 2023.
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… Ready for it?
In lower than 24 hours available on the market, ticket sales for Taylor Swift’s Eras Tour concert film have already broken records.
Fandango reported Friday that the singer’s film ranks in the highest 10 all-time best first-day presellers, joining the likes of “Avengers: Endgame,” “Star Wars: The Force Awakens” and “Spider-Man: No Way Home.”
“Taylor Swift is giving moviegoing fans and your entire industry the last word gift by bringing [the] Taylor Swift Eras Tour concert film to the large screen,” said Jerramy Hainline, senior vp at Fandango Ticketing.
AMC Entertainment reported that Thursday ticket sales for Swift’s film reached $26 million, a latest record for the century-old company. Previously, the very best single-day ticket sales record was held by “Spider-Man: No Way Home” with $16.9 million.
IMAX has already sold out greater than 250 screenings and is over indexing on presales. The corporate told CNBC that it’s pulling in the identical percentage of presales that it might for a blockbuster tentpole feature.
“As a substitute of launching an event through streaming, it’s being launched directly through the theatrical window,” IMAX CEO Richard Gelfond told CNBC’s “Squawk on the Street” on Friday. “It confirms what many of the studios have been saying … that a theatrical release enhances the worth of later windows like streaming.”
“While it’s improbable, I do not think there’s going to be quite a lot of cookie cutters, because there’s only one Taylor Swift,” he said.
Swift’s concert film documents the wildly popular tour that raked in tens of millions and was on its strategy to hit a record-breaking $1 billion in sales earlier this summer.
It displaced Universal’s “The Exorcist: Believer,” which announced it might move its release date every week earlier just hours after news broke of the pop star’s drop.
Swift’s concert film was originally slated for just the nation’s largest theater chains, akin to AMC, Regal and Cinemark.
AMC, the biggest movie chain on the planet, has added additional domestic showtimes to extend capability in response to demand. The nearly three-hour-long film, which arrives in theaters Oct. 13, will play at the very least 4 showtimes per day at AMC theaters on Thursdays, Fridays, Saturdays and Sundays through early November.
Wanda Gierhart Fearing, Cinemark chief marketing and content officer, said in an announcement that the film drove “frenzied traffic to our website and app the moment tickets went on sale.”
“We’re ready for Swifties to be enchanted by this concert film within the unprecedented variety of auditoriums now we have booked to satisfy demand for the shared, musical experience,” she said.
Smaller theater chains quickly requested access to the film, which is ready to run through Nov. 5. Before the top of Thursday, most domestic theater chains were offering showtimes of their premium format theaters akin to IMAX and Dolby.
Cinema chains told CNBC that almost all of the Thursday ticket sales were for showings through the concert film’s opening weekend. Box office analysts speculate that Swift’s Eras Tour concert film could capture greater than $100 million over its debut.
The film release comes at a time when Hollywood is grappling with dual labor strikes and the departure of movies akin to Warner Bros. and Legendary Entertainment’s “Dune: Part Two” from the 2023 film slate.
Disclosure: Comcast is the parent company of NBCUniversal and CNBC. NBCUniversal owns Fandango.
