UPDATE, AFTER EXCLUSIVE: AMC is reporting that the Taylor Swift: The Eras Tour concert film has clocked a mindblowing $26M for the circuit in presales in its first 24 hours, beating their previous first day presales record for Spider-Man: No Way Home which did $16.9M. Let’s write that again — this massive presales figure is only for AMC. It’s not for the entire industry and other circuits like Regal, Cinemark and Harkins — which means the figure is significantly bigger. Realize, though, AMC reps the largest footprint for movie theaters at the domestic B.O. with 568 locations.
AMC reports that less than three hours after tickets went on sale for Taylor Swift: The Eras Tour, it was already shattering Spider-Man: No Way Home’s record. The pic will play at least four showtimes daily at AMC on Thursday, Friday, Saturday and Sunday when it kicks off for a four weekend run.
Triple note here with AMC’s maneuvers with the Taylor Swift: Eras Tour concert pic: It’s the exhibitors who are winning 100% this time; not the studios who do not have a stake in this pic.
Separately, Fandango reports that Taylor Swift: The Eras Tour broke the ticket seller’s first day sales for 2023 and ranks among their first-day presellers which include Avengers: Endgame, Star Wars: The Force Awakens, Spider-Man: No Way Home and others.
“Taylor Swift is giving moviegoing fans and the entire industry the ultimate gift by bringing Taylor Swift: The Eras Tour concert film to the big screen,” said Jerramy Hainline, SVP, Fandango Ticketing. “Not only is Taylor Swift’s concert film the best first-day ticket seller of the year on Fandango, but the concert film is performing like the superhero she is and ranking among the best first-day ticket sellers of all time from franchises like Marvel, Star Wars, DC Comics and more.”
EXCLUSIVE: Since going on sale at 7:15 a.m. CT this morning, ticket presales for AMC’s concert film Taylor Swift: The Eras Tour are well past $10M and counting, we hear from sources. By the end of the day, this presales figure will be tremendously north of what we’re seeing. Swift’s presales here bury the one-weekend-play gross of Trafalgar’s BST: Yet to Come, which did $8M earlier this year.
Watch a trailer for The Eras Tour, which hits theaters in October, below.
This enormous presales figure for the pic’s four-weekend play is making distribution executives fall out of their chairs — and reach for their Just calculators. They’re trying to figure out how this concert film distributed to the top three circuits, and possibly more theaters, will do in its opening weekend, off what largely will be a marketing campaign fueled by circuits’ social media, email blasts to loyalty clubs and Swift herself.
RELATED: Movie Release Date Calendar For 2023
What does The Eras Tour even comp to in regards to presales?
“Some Marvel movie,” adds a distribution guru.
They’re right: Days before Eternals opened, presales were at $13M. But The Eras Tour is poised to be crazy higher. Keep in mind that Star Wars: The Force Awakens did $20M on its first day of presales — nine weeks out from its release date back in 2015!
RELATED: Taylor Swift Announces Additional 2024 North American Eras Tour Dates
Certainly, AMC doesn’t have the marketing spend of a major studio a la Disney, Sony and Paramount, which opened their respective docu-concert movies to big numbers, i.e. Hannah Montana and Miley Cyrus: Best of Both Worlds Concert ($31M opening, $65.2M final in 2008), Michael Jackson’s This Is It ($23.2M, $72M in 2009) and Justin Bieber: Never Say Never ($29.5M opening, $73M domestic in 2011).
“They don’t need that,” cried one distribution boss today about the pic’s P&A spend. “All AMC needs is Taylor Swift posting about the movie on social media to her fans.”
AMC said in pre-release that it will limit the showtimes of other Hollywood pics due to the presence of the Swift movie, for which a separate movie ticket sales portal has been created to accommodate huge demand. Also, AMC Stubs members aren’t getting priority treatment when it comes to passes on the film or immediate queue access.
What makes this pre-recorded concert film, reportedly shot at L.A.’s SoFi Stadium in August, a must-see is the fact that Swift’s concert tickets are hard to come by. Billboard estimates that Eras Tour has made close to $600M, becoming the highest-grossing concert jaunt by a female act, while Bloomberg estimates that the average Swift concerts gross $13M per U.S. city stop. Global outlook for the fulls 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 reference to her 2014 album title and the latter a double-dip on Swift’s self-described lucky number.
With Swift in their corner, AMC has the best guerrilla marketing machine available, coupled with its ability to target concert moviegoers via AMC Stubs club, not to mention in-theater trailers. That’s a ditto marketing plan for the other circuits and their loyalty clubs as well. It remains to be seen if smaller circuits are booking The Eras Tour, but I’m told AMC is getting phone calls.
“Based on these pre-sales, exhibs are going to be all in,” said another distribution exec.
Taylor Swift: The Eras Tour concert film will not compete with Universal/Blumhouse/Morgan Creek’s The Exorcist: Believer on its opening weekend, that female-skewing horror movie having just moved to October 6 within minutes after Deadline’s story posted. However, Swift will go up against Lionsgate’s Ordinary Angels on October 13, then versus Apple/Paramount’s Killers of the Flower Moon on October 20, and Uni/Blumhouse’s theatrical day-and-date of Five Nights at Freddy’s on October 27. The Eras Tour is really the only wide release during the first weekend of November, with Dune: Part Two now in March 2024.
AMC, has tapped Variance Films to book the movie, did not return Deadline’s request for comment about Swift presales.