With titles falling off marquees due to the strikes, leave it to Taylor Swift to save the day. Her record breaking concert, the Eras Tour, will be playing AMC, Regal and Cinemark theaters this fall. The pic is directed by Sam Wrench. AMC is also releasing the Eras Tour movie on their own in what is a first distribution initiative for the circuit, however, they’ve tapped Variance Films to book the title. The pic will also be booked at Cineplex theatres in Canada and Cineopolis in Mexico.
We hear that AMC worked with Swift’s team to make this event happen.
What Barbie has been for the box office, the Eras Tour has been to the concert business this past summer. Natch, tickets sold out within hours on Ticketmaster, but StubHub reported the Eras Tour repped their best ticket sales ever for a concert. An Eras Tour show clocks 3 hours and 15 minutes long, the longest of the pop singer’s career, with 44 songs over ten acts.
The concert pic will play Oct. 13-15, the Oct. 19-22 , Oct. 26-29, Tuesday Oct. 31 and Nov. 2-5. Tickets are priced at $19.89 and $13.13. That’s a great price considering the first batch of concert tickets ranged from $49 to $449, while VIP packages ranged from $199 to $899. At AMC, the Eras Tour will play in Dolby auditoriums.
In anticipation of this announcement, AMC has upgraded its website and ticketing engines to handle more than 5x the largest influx of ticket-buying traffic the circuit has ever experienced. “AMC is also aware that no ticketing system in history seems to have been able to accommodate the soaring demand of Taylor Swift fans when tickets are first placed on sale,” reads the chain’s release this morning.
This is some serious good news for the No. 1 and No. 3 circuit which are looking at a wonky dry spell this fall with Sony’s Kraven the Hunter and Legendary/Warner Bros.’ Dune: Part Two missing from the calendar, as well as the Zendaya romance pic, Challengers.
With this being a unique first type of special event for AMC, they aren’t granting free passes to anyone including their AMC Stubs A-list members who “may not use their membership to reserve tickets.”
“For our IT systems to be able to accommodate anticipated huge initial demand, AMC will temporarily be restricting the usage of AMC Stubs rewards toward online ticket purchases.”
And there’s a pothole for you, Hollywood: “AMC will temporarily scale back its website ticket availability for most other movie titles.”