Taylor Swift’s Movie Pre-Sales Defeat Star Wars, But Not Marvel

Hollywood truly is about to become Taylor’s Version. Tickets went on sale Thursday for Taylor Swift: The Eras Tour, a nearly three-hour concert film based on the artist’s most recent tour, and it reportedly sold about $37 million in tickets on the first day from the three biggest theater chains alone: AMC, Regal, and Cinemark. That’s almost double what Star Wars: The Force Awakens sold on its first day, but not quite as much as Avengers: Endgame sold on its first day.

According to Deadline, Star Wars: The Force Awakens sold about $20 million in tickets on its first day (eventually leading to a $250 million opening weekend and still record-holding $936 million domestic total), while Avengers: Endgame sold about $50 million on its first day (leading to a record $357 million opening weekend and $858 million overall total). However, despite having day-one sales between those behemoths, the trade is only projecting a $70 million opening weekend for The Eras Tour. At least for now. It seems rather conservative considering the film already, after one day, has made more than half that, but most recent concert films (such as Justin Bieber: This Is It and One Direction: This Is Us) gross about half their total on opening weekend. Swift doing half her opening weekend on a single day sort of makes sense by comparison.

But really, has anything about this movie made sense? After the seemingly out-of-nowhere announcement of its release forced Universal to move its tentpole Exorcist film off a Friday the 13th release (a horror movie moved OFF Friday the 13th in October… think about that), more news about the film came out. Puck News reported Swift and her team not only self-financed the film for between $10-20 million, but they initially went to major studios to inquire about releasing it. In classic 2023 movie studio fashion though, they didn’t want to pay up, so Swift went around the studios directly to AMC to negotiate the deal.

What happens next is anyone’s guess. It seems all but certain though that Taylor Swift: The Eras Tour is going to be one of the biggest films of the fall season, if not the year. Can it come even close to Star Wars: The Force Awakens or Avengers: Endgame numbers? Probably not. But it will 100% become the highest-grossing concert film ever, besting Justin Bieber: Never Say Never, which took in about $73 million. It’s halfway there already and it’s still six weeks away.

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