Taylor Swift's Eras Tour film has become 'communal experience': Analyst
Taylor Swift's Eras Tour concert film broke box office records in its theatrical debut, boasting the highest-ever concert film premiere while simultaneously becoming the highest-grossing concert film ever.
Box Office Pro Chief Analyst Shawn Robbins sits down with Yahoo Finance Live to talk about the Eras Tour's box office performance and the ways in which Taylor Swift's brand and recent NFL appearances have had a spillover effect with the film's premiere.
"Taylor has a very loyal, dedicated fan base that turns out, and really drove those pre-sales, and ended up making it very front-loaded in that aspect," Robbins explains. "And I think that's what caused a lot of volatility in projections, but now, it's going to rely on those fans to keep going back to see multiple repeat viewings, and it's a weekend-only engagement which also makes it outside the norm."
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Video Transcript
- There's been so much fanfare going into this Taylor Swift concert movie here. How much of a long tail do you think this could have? A number of repeat viewers? People were going back to see a few films, but not like-- not like this is projected. We heard accounts even within our own team of people who went back three times over the weekend.
SHAWN ROBBINS: Wow. Yeah, that's-- I mean, that's the crazy thing. And that's what made this movie challenging to predict is because it's not your typical Hollywood movie. Taylor has a very loyal, dedicated fan base that turns out and really drove those pre-sales and ended up making it very front-loaded in that aspect, and I think that's what caused a lot of volatility in projections. But now it's going to rely on those fans to keep going back to see multiple repeat viewings.
And it's a weekend-only engagement, which also makes it outside the norm because it won't have those weekday shows to catch any of the demand spillover from the weekend. So it's really tough to look at it that way, but I think it's baked into how she planned this out with her team, having four weekends and movie theaters and essentially giving fans an option who maybe didn't get a chance to see the concert in person this is the next best way to do it. And that's, I think, what theaters and concerts share in common it's a communal experience.
And we heard a lot of stories about that over this weekend, with a lot of interactive audiences singing along and dancing at all of these screenings. So it's really kind of an outside-the-box approach to moviegoing right now and something that I think we could see more of going forward.
- Shawn, I guess how would you compare the domestic opening and excitement here to some of those international numbers and how much of this strategy maybe just works with that core audience? You talk about the fact that people going back two or three times versus people who like Taylor Swift but maybe aren't as excited to run out there and buy those tickets right away.
SHAWN ROBBINS: Yeah, I think that was also part of the challenge in really trying to assess how much hype was being generated around the movie and how many of her, maybe more casual fans, would show up to see this. And I think her appearance in the media over the last few weeks with Travis Kelce and that entire narrative has been an interesting angle to all of this. It's hard to really say did that help the movie. Did it maybe create a little fatigue for people who weren't already who weren't going to go see it? It's-- we'll never know. I think that's just speculation.
But I think in the end, this is something that is really just a huge positive result for her and for theaters. And we kind of look now back at what happened when Hannah Montana slash Miley Cyrus movie came out about 13, 15 years ago, Justin Bieber. There was kind of a wave of these concert films that did really well, and then they kind of stopped for about a decade or so. Maybe this kick starts another trend like that.
We already know that Beyonce has a film coming out in December. So you know Taylor is set a high bar. I don't think we can expect to see this kind of a result every time, but I think every little bit is going to help theaters and obviously, artists want to connect with their fans as much as they can.
