By Dawn Chmielewski and Lisa Richwine
LOS ANGELES – Cultural juggernaut Taylor Swift packed stadiums on her concert tour, made voting cool again by urging her fans to do their civic duty and had teenage girls tuning in to professional football games to see her cheer from the stands.
In her next act, Swift is poised to lift another corner of the economy: a movie box office still trying to recover from the pandemic and Hollywood strikes.
When “Taylor Swift: The Eras Tour” hits movie theaters on Oct. 13, it will serve as a high-profile test of whether such “alternative content” as a concert film can bring audiences to cinemas, creating more consistency for a business that ebbs and flows with the theatrical release calendar.
Swift’s film could bring in $120 million in its opening weekend, according to box office analysts and studio executives, delivering a jolt to ticket sales for AMC Theaters, Cineworld and other chains.
But the vaunted Taylor Swift effect, together with a concert film from fellow pop superstar Beyonce, may not completely make up for holes created by Hollywood strikes.
The labor unrest has interrupted the movie industry’s comeback, stalling momentum from summer hits such as “Spider-Man: Across the Spider-Verse,” “Barbie” and “Oppenheimer” ahead of the crucial holiday season, which accounts for roughly one-quarter of the industry’s annual box office revenue, according to research firm Comscore.
“Swift and Beyonce will certainly fill some of the gaps,” said Box Office Pro senior analyst Shawn Robbins. “Still, it’s probably asking too much for those titles alone to completely make up for the revenue of ‘Dune: Part 2,’ ‘Kraven the Hunter,’ and the next ‘Ghostbusters.’”
All three of those anticipated films were moved to 2024 because their stars cannot promote their movies while the SAG-AFTRA actors union remains on strike.
After studios postponed those releases, theater owners scrambled to fill their screens with what the industry calls “alternative content,” such as the concert films from Swift and Beyonce’s Renaissance Tour.
Advance sales for “Taylor Swift: The Eras Tour” are on pace with a Star Wars or Marvel blockbuster. Box office analysts expect the documentary to take in between $150 million and $225 million over its theatrical run in the United States and Canada. “Renaissance: A Film by Beyonce,” hitting theaters in December, is expected to bring in $75 million in ticket sales.
“We’ve been talking about alternative programming for a long time,” said Rolando Rodriguez, chairman of the National Association of Theatre Owners, noting that exhibitors have shown other forms of entertainment, such as opera. “But there’s no question that the Eras Tour with Taylor Swift has really launched that into a new atmosphere. Beyoncé will take it to the next level.”
The announcement of Swift’s movie “was a huge unexpected surprise,” said Brock Bagby, executive vice president for Missouri-based B&B Theatres, the fifth-largest U.S. theater chain with 529 screens in 14 states.
Cinemas are aiming to turn the film, which will run Thursdays through Sundays, into an event. B&B Theatres will be rolling out pink carpets, setting up photo booths and encouraging fans to dance during the screening.
Still, there is only so much Swift and Queen Bey can do.
Despite a strong November line-up with “The Marvels,” “Trolls Band Together” and a “Hunger Games” prequel, the Christmas slate looks thin compared to recent years. Two studio executives noted the lack of an obvious December blockbuster on the scale of “Avatar: The Way of Water,” which was the highest-grossing film of 2022, or the 2021 hit “Spider-Man: No Way Home.” — Reuters
