Is the worldwide release of ‘Taylor Swift: The Eras Tour’ a game-changer for distribution?

Forecasts for the first four days in the US and Canada are in the $100m-$125m range. Those projections alone would already establish The Eras Tour – which was shot during recent performances on the Los Angeles leg of Swift’s world tour – as the biggest concert film of all time in North America, usurping the $73m record set in 2011 by Justin Bieber: Never Say Never and the $72.1m by the Michael Jackson concert film This Is It two years prior.

This Is It’s $261m global record is also in Swift’s sights. A $50m take from international markets over opening weekend has been forecast. AMC, which is distributing the film, reported advanced global ticket sales in excess of $100m on October 6, causing the cinema circuit’s stock to surge by 11%. By the time The Eras Tour has played out four consecutive Thursday-Sunday periods from this weekend through November 2-5, it could finish in the region of $275m worldwide.

Exhibitors, especially AMC which carried a $9.5bn debt load at the end of its second quarter in August, needed a big film at a time when the Hollywood strikes have pushed titles such as Dune: Part Two into 2024 and left the autumn corridor looking decidedly skimpy.

But until it was made public in late August, nobody expected a Taylor Swift concert film. And once the October 13 release date (now October 12 due to high demand) was announced, nobody felt like taking on Swift at the box office. Universal moved up its release of The Exorcist: Believer by one week to October 6. (The horror reboot grossed a disappointing $26.5m over its opening weekend.)

AMC will play the film in every one of its 568 US locations and is sub-distributing through the number two and three North American chains Regal and Cinemark, with Variance Films booking other US circuits. Cineplex is distributing in Canada, Cinepolis oversees Mexico and Central America, and London-based event cinema distributor Trafalgar Releasing oversees the balance of international.

AMC has not officially disclosed the terms of the deal, although it is understood the ticket revenue split is in the high-50% range in favour of Swift for opening weekend – in line with the dominant share studio distributors enjoy over theatres when they release a top-tier franchise film.

Industry sources said Taylor Swift Productions, which is effectively the studio in this equation, most likely has not needed to spend much if anything on marketing: a few posts to Swift’s hundreds of millions of social-media followers are typically enough to call her loyal fans to action.

AMC and the sub-distributors take charge of promoting the film in their venues and through their direct-to-customer channels. They can look forward to a torrent of people spending money at the lucrative concession stands featuring bespoke Eras Tour popcorn and soda containers.

Tickets at AMC are $19.89 for adults and $13.13 for children and seniors except on branded large-screen formats. That’s a fair chunk of change, but far less than tickets to Swift’s Eras Live tour. Seats at SoFi stadium in the Los Angeles leg in August were selling at anywhere from multiple hundreds into the low thousands of dollars.

“Playing in our sandbox”

This is all impressive stuff and shows Swift’s status as a musician and brand to be without equal.

The real talking point for the industry, however, is the fact that AMC is directly distributing the film. Swift’s team is believed to have met with Hollywood majors over the summer and ultimately decided to bypass them and go with AMC.

“From our standpoint, a customer of ours [AMC] is playing in our sandbox and that’s not a good thing,” said one distribution executive.

The partnership has set the cat among the pigeons and has got people in Hollywood asking whether this could this be a game-changer.

The short answer based on conversations with industry sources and background briefings with studio executives is no, Hollywood insiders do not see a general trend towards bypassing studios. Their distribution and marketing infrastructure, which includes booking and collections, make them an essential part of a successful release.

The sense is that the deal presented by Swift’s team to the studios was not appealing: they would have needed to pay for the marketing, recoup that spend, and get paid a distribution fee. That makes no sense to studios on a film that is likely to generate substantial box office.

Bob Berney, the distribution veteran who now runs Picturehouse in the US, does not believe the AMC deal portends a sea change and notes that exhibitors have been working with Fathom Events – which is owned by AMC, Regal and Cinemark – on event films for years. The Swift film is a version of that, albeit a much, much bigger version.

“A lot of films are released under a service deal,” Berney says. “Taylor Swift’s camp knew what they had and didn’t need to pay anybody. It’s smart but how many producers are going to have the goods to be able to do that?”

He adds, “I don’t think it endangers the [status quo], but it does show that after the pandemic there are no rules anymore. It also shows that artists who have a tight connection with an audience control things.”

“It’s not a game-changer,” agrees Randy Greenberg, an executive producer on The Meg film series, former senior studio executive and currently head of marketing and operations at advertising media company Loop Media Inc.

“There have been concert movies over the years that have done extremely well because they were the right concert movies at the right time with the right mix of music and personality. Taylor Swift is exactly that at this moment in time.”

Front-loaded box office

Some studio sources ventured to suggest that without their experience in collections, it might be a while before Swift gets her share of ticket sales and note that Variance, a professional outfit that typically handles smaller films, has never worked on a release of this scale before.

Berney, whose Picturehouse releases The Mission in New York and Los Angeles on Friday and At The Gates on November 3, does not see it that way. “Because the bulk of [screens in the US] are AMC, collections are probably going to be very contractual and monitored. I don’t think it’s going to be a problem.”

Will box office be front-loaded as Swift fans rush to see their idol in the first two weekends before demand starts to fade? And will non-AMC cinema operators with sparsely populated auditoriums try to get out of their distribution commitment?

Greenberg is not so sure. “She’s the first artist to have a $1bn tour,” he says of Swift. “Her fan base is loyal and deep and I wouldn’t put it past them to see the movie more than once.”

While nobody who spoke to Screen thinks The Eras Tour will presage a broad shift in how most films are distributed, there could be niche opportunities for exhibition to exploit.

“We could see a trend in exhibitors doing more one-off event movies centred on music, opera, concerts, reissues,” says Berney. “This might be the best way to go rather than through traditional distribution if you have a movie from a show or concert that you feel could do that.”

Adds Greenberg: “The question is, is this a game-changer for musicians? Can you film your concert and make extra money through a concert movie?”

AMC has already struck a deal with Beyoncé to directly distribute Renaissance: A Film By Beyoncé in the US, Canada and Mexico on December 1. What is to stop industry giants with current or imminent tours and residencies like U2, Madonna, Metallica, Bad Bunny or Harry Styles from signing similar pacts?

On a film like The Eras Tour, fans who missed out or did not want to pay hundreds or thousands of dollars to see Swift live get the chance to watch their idol on a big screen for far less than the price of a concert ticket.

For Swift, this could serve as a timely marketing campaign. The singer has already played Mexico City but in essence her international tour starts in Buenos Aires, Argentina, in November and reaches Europe next summer. Seeing Swift on screen might just be the motivation a fan needs to break into their piggy banks and book a live ticket. 

• ‘Taylor Swift: The Eras Tour’: Review