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 movies.
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 fall and winter slate, a direct results of strike rules that prevent top talent from promoting upcoming movies, movie theater chains like AMC, Regal and Cinemark are desperately looking for 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 during 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 in the past, the iconic 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 anticipated 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 because 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 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 greater and more memorable out of a visit to the movies.
Only recently, audiences were drawn en masse to see big-budgeted superhero flicks on opening weekend. The urgency was driven by a must see what happens next in the giant 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. Nonetheless, 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 at the box office this yr.
Then got here Barbenheimer.
Warner Bros.’ “Barbie” and Universal’s “Oppenheimer,” two movies on the opposite spectrum of cinematic experiences, opened on the same weekend in July. The mixture of the releases thrilled audiences, bringing hundreds of thousands out to cinemas to see double features. Clad in pink or donning fedoras, audiences drove the two movies to set attendance records. They’re still making big money, too. “Barbie” has cleared $600 million at 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 house. 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 home are more vital than ever to the theatrical industry.
![IMAX CEO on 'Taylor Swift: The Eras Tour' hitting the big screen](https://image.cnbcfm.com/api/v1/image/107295075-16935811371693581134-31006740733-1080pnbcnews.jpg?v=1693583725&w=750&h=422&vtcrop=y)
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 same 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 various other specialty release ideas.”
In a rare move, Swift opted to distribute the film through AMC, not a standard studio partner. It is anticipated that the 43% of ticket proceeds will remain with theaters and 57% can be split between Swift and AMC. Swift will likely keep a big chunk of that share, in line with industry insiders.
After all, the theater company will generate significantly greater than that in concession sales, perhaps the real 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 sort of revenue, as the company continues to spend more on film licensing costs and theater rentals than it makes in ticket and concession sales. In truth, the company only recently posted a profit during its second quarter this yr, 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 yr.
A latest era for concert movies?
The theater industry hopes Swift reinvigorates the concert genre, which blossomed in the Sixties and 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 so much cheaper.
Tickets for Swift’s Eras Tour were priced at $49 to $450, with VIP packages starting at $199 and reaching $899. Nonetheless, at the secondary market many tickets sold for 1000’s of dollars each. Tickets for her filmed concert start at $19.89 for adults and $13.13 for teenagers. 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 the years, 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 this may lead to much more concert movies in theaters in the years to come back.”
For 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 line with 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 modern era, the traditionally released concert film that plays for as much as a couple of weeks in theaters has taken a back seat to the very talked-about event cinema model of a really limited availability of just a couple of days or perhaps a single night on the big 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 current 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 line with 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 won’t be available until about per week before the film is ready for release. Nonetheless, box office analysts expect it’ll be considered a large release and could have as many locations as a blockbuster feature.
And there is precedent for such a lot of theaters and the eight-week long term. 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 in the past they usually’ve sold out super quick. I feel what Taylor Swift goes to do is sort of open up the query of, well, should these be multiple night one weekend?”
After all, most concede that Swift is an outlier in the industry and her success at the box office will not be easily replicated.
“Lest anyone think that is an easily replicable feat, you have to first understand that Swift is working a novel 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 could be just the starting.
“I’ve all the time 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 ready to bring a filmed version of Sara Bareilles’ Broadway hit “Waitress” to cinemas in December.
“Individuals are on the lookout for various things to go to theaters for,” Nutt said.
Disclosure: Comcast is the parent company of NBCUniversal and CNBC. NBCUniversal distributed “Oppenheimer.”