Taylor Swift turns The Eras Tour into a blockbuster

The Future. The fall movie season is getting its own Barbie moment with the release of Taylor Swift’s Eras concert film. Seemingly the first time a concert film has been released simultaneously with its ongoing tour (which will gross an estimated $1.4 billion worldwide), the bold move shows there’s truly no end to the demand for seeing Swift do her thing… and may be a good sign that her announced movie with Searchlight Pictures will be a massive hit.

Stadium seating
TSwift is taking her tour to the big screen for four weekends this fall.

• The concert film, directed by Sam Wrench at LA’s SoFi Stadium, will play at AMC, Regal, and Cinemark every Friday through Sunday on Oct. 13-15, Oct. 19-22, Oct. 26-29, Oct. 31, and Nov. 2-5 (and maybe expand to smaller chains).
• AMC, which produced the likely three-hour-plus movie, has set tickets at $19.89 and $13.13 in IMAX and Dolby auditoriums.
• And AMC already expected ticket demand to be so high it developed a new system to handle presale transactions (avoiding a Ticketmaster situation). It’s even barred AMC Stubs A-List members from reserving tickets. Ouch.

AMC’s planning has paid off. The film clocked over $10 million in presales in a matter of hours — a rate similar to a Marvel movie, says a distribution exec. Box office analysts expect the concert film’s debut to easily blow past that of the record-holder, Disney’s Hannah Montana and Miley Cyrus: Best of Both Worlds Concert (how’s that for a fun fact), which scored $31 million when it opened in 2008.

In fact, the film is expected to be such a juggernaut Universal promptly rescheduled its horror tentpole The Exorcist: Believer from Oct. 13 to Oct. 6, with producer Jason Blum announcing the change in the best way possible.