Taylor Swift breaks records with 'The Eras Tour' and grosses $124 million in theaters worldwide

Since Thursday and throughout the weekend, movie theaters across the United States have been filled with Taylor Swift fans willing not only to see her film, but to dance to it, sing along to it, take photos of it and participate in the festive and collective experience that has become the exhibition of The Eras Tourconcert in movie theaters. And the numbers have proven it. As reported by the cinema chain AMC, which has partnered with the singer to distribute her film, it has broken records for a musical feature film: it has achieved 92.8 million dollars (88 million euros) only in the United States and another 30.7 million (more than 29) in the rest of the world, with a total of 123.5 million dollars (116.5 million euros) in the 94 territories where it has been shown. That makes it the best musical film in history in history, surpassing Justin Bieber's Never Say Never in 2011, which grossed $99 million in total; and best opening, beating Michael Jackson's This Is It, with $74.25 million in its opening weekend worldwide in 2009.

In addition, Swift's has become the second best October opening in the history of U.S. movie theaters, only surpassed by three million dollars by Joker, releasedin 2019, and achieves one of the best opening figures of the year in the country. In addition, it may surpass it in the local data, because the final figures for Sunday are missing, which would make those 93 million reach 95 or 97. What it won't be able to do is surpass it globally, because Joaquin Phoenix's Joker made a total of almost $250 million ($237 million at the current exchange rate, without adjusting for inflation; $284 million adjusting for inflation). A multitude of distributors and cinema owners have declared to the American trade press that, with the actors' strike very present and few powerful releases so far, The Eras Tour has been a huge respite for their accounts.

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Taylor Swift premieres 'The Eras Tour' on the big screen surrounded by her parents, fans and Beyoncé

This weekend the theaters have been filled with young people dressed in Swiftie style who have spent the two and a half hours of the film standing, dancing, singing, shouting and even taking pictures and videos of the screens, with much more lax rules than in a regular film. Posters have been given away at the entrance to the halls, and plastic cups and popcorn buckets with the image of the singer, sold out in many establishments, have also swept sales. The Pennsylvania-born artist has taken her successful concert tour to movie theaters (she has already given more than fifty in the United States and has more than 100 left in the rest of the world for almost all of next year) but also the atmosphere that is breathed in her concerts. And he's done it practically alone. He has counted on film director Sam Wrench to shape it into a film and to shorten his show by half a dozen songs, but he has had no other intermediaries. It has only partnered with AMC for distribution, without counting on platforms, production companies or advertisers. In fact, he only announced its release a couple of weeks before it hit theaters, and there have been no announcements or publicity, other than that made by his own legion of fans.

Taylor Swift fans pick up a poster at the entrance of a venue to watch her 'The Eras Tour' in Mexico City, Oct. 13, 2023.ALEXANDRE MENEGHINI (REUTERS)

The successful concert has been seen in some 4,500 cinemas in 94 countries, and in many of them it has been number one at the box office. This has been the case in Spain, Mexico, Colombia, Argentina, Chile, Ecuador, Colombia, Peru, the United Kingdom and Ireland, France, Italy, Germany, Portugal and Australia. There are countries that it has not yet reached, due to strategy or because it has not had time to pass the legal qualification filters, such as Brazil (where, for example, it lands on November 3 and where there are half a dozen Swift concerts at the end of the month), Indonesia, Turkey, India or South Korea. So the coming weekends will continue to have good data for the singer. In some countries, such as the United States, distributor AMC has followed the strategy that it can only be seen during Thursday, Friday, Saturday and Sunday afternoons.

Taylor Swift herself, 33, attended the world premiere of her The Eras Tour last Wednesday in Los Angeles, where she closed a shopping mall and the dozen theaters of her adjacent movie theater. The singer was photographed with dozens of fans and greeted room by room the more than 2,000 present, whom she had personally chosen to be there, thanking them for their support during these months of touring (she began in March in Arizona) and also throughout the 17 years she has been making music. "I've always had a great time doing this," he said in one of the rooms, where this newspaper was present. "I can't believe I've made a career out of music, I've always had a lot of fun doing it, but I've never had a better time in my life than with The Eras Tour." His fans seem to feel the same way.