Weekend projections: Taylor Swift sets new concert record, but falls a bit behind expectations

October 15, 2023

TAYLOR SWIFT | THE ERAS TOUR

As expected, TAYLOR SWIFT | THE ERAS TOUR will smash the record for the the biggest opening weekend for a concert movie, more than tripling the $31.1 million earned by Hannah Montana and Miley Cyrus: Best of Both Worlds Concert Tour when it opened in 2008. In fact, it’ll be the highest-grossing concert movie of all time by the end of the day today, soaring past Justin Bieber’s $73 million. However, it will fall just short of $100 million according to the official Sunday-morning projection. There’s still a fairly high degree of uncertainty in where it will finally land, with AMC setting a range of $95 million to $97 million, and other industry estimates looking at something in the mid-90s.

Here’s how the domestic numbers look as of Sunday morning (click on the image for the full chart of films reporting so far)…



This was a very tricky film to predict given its unprecedented release strategy, the megastardom of Taylor Swift, the unusual ticket pricing, the time of year, and more. Our $120-million weekend prediction was based almost entirely on our audience tracking, and of course the buzz around this movie was immense. The fact that it is falling a bit behind those inflated expectations is a momentary disappointment, but the overall picture is spectacular. Among all the other records, it’s worth noting that The Eras Tour is running neck-and-neck with Joker’s $96.2 million for the biggest opening weekend in October.

AMC hasn’t shared estimated or projected figures for Saturday and Sunday, which adds to the uncertainty a bit. After $39 million on Friday, we’re seeing something around $32 million for the film on Saturday. That’s $71 million so far, and means that AMC is expecting something around $24 million to $26 million today. Could some surprise repeat business today take the film past $100 million for the weekend? That’s still a possibility, and there are clearly lots of tickets available compared to Saturday and Sunday. The problem for an event movie like this is what happens after the big opening. That question remains open today, but it doesn’t look as though the film has fantastic legs at this point.

However its run pans out, the performance of The Eras Tour, along with Barbie’s record-breaking, have changed the conversation about the theatrical business. The post-pandemic era looks like it may be defined by movies that can connect directly with an audience on a more personal level than the big franchise movies that dominated pre-pandemic. That’s more of hunch than something we can hang a lot of data on right now. The performance of Renaissance: A Film by Beyoncé will tell us a bit more in December, but there’s a lot of interesting films coming out between now and then that could change the narrative.

The rest of the top 10 is lining up almost right in line with expectations. There’s just a glimmer of a sign that horror movies are benefiting from Halloween season. The fact that The Exorcist: Believer moved a week earlier than planned means we have a bit of a curious lull on that front right now. Five Nights at Freddy’s will probably not have a lot of competition when it opens on October 27.

Before then, Killers of the Flower Moon will make its debut next weekend. That’s a movie that could be hampered by the continued actors strike preventing the full star treatment for its launch. Martin Scorsese has a lot of heavy-lifting to do, but it looks as though we could have another good weekend for a non-franchise film.

- Studio weekend projections
- Barbie’s day-by-day performance comparison with Avatar: The Way of Water and The Super Mario Bros. Movie
- All-time top-grossing movies in North America
- All-time top-grossing movies worldwide

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Bruce Nash,

Filed under: Martin Scorsese