TS_credit Beth Garrabrant

Source: Beth Garrabrant

Taylor Swift

Taylor Swift’s upcoming concert film has set an AMC record of $26m in first-day pre-sales, the exhibitor, which is distributing the film in the US, said on Friday.

The number for Taylor Swift: The Eras Tour outstrips AMC’s previous high-water market of $16.9m set by Spider-Man: No Way Home and according to the company “shattered” the latter’s 24-hour record within three hours of going on sale.

First-day advance sales will be considerably higher than $26m given that Cinemark and Regal are also paying the film starting on October 13, while Variance Films is booking other US cinemas.

According to one report the concert film is projected to score an opening weekend in the region of $70m, which would beat that of Hannah Montana And Miley Cyrus: Best Of Both Worlds Concert whose opening weekend delivered an unadjusted $31.1m in 2008.

Taylor Swift: The Eras Tour has also broken records at Cinemark, the country’s third largest exhibitor after AMC and Regal, although numbers were not disclosed. It will play at all 315 Cinemark cinemas. Ticket site Fandango has also called a record and has not disclosed numbers. 

AMC said on Friday morning it was adding showtimes to increase capacity “where necessary and available” in addition to screening the concert films at least four times a day at its 568 locations.

Taylor Swift: The Eras Tour is playing October 13-15, October 19-22, October 22-26, and November 2-5.

It comes at a delicate time for box office. While summer is on track to finish on more than $4bn when the season ends with this weekend’s Labor Day holiday session, autumn had been starting to look patchy as studios pulled films amid the ongoing dual Hollywood strike.

Sony’s Kraven The Hunter has moved from October 6 to August 30 2024 and Warner Bros has pushed Dune: Part Two from November 3 to March 15 of next year. MGM had already moved its R-rated Zendaya tennis romance Challengers from September 15 to April 26, 2024.

However October is shaping up to be a fascinating month, with Universal’s The Exorcist: Believer opening on October 6 after the studio moved it up by one week so as not to clash with The Eras Tour opening weekend, and Apple and Paramount release Martin Scorsese’s Killers Of The Flower Moon wide on October 20.