Taylor Swift film dominates box office with £6m opening weekend
Taylor Swift’s concert film has broken records, becoming the highest-grossing ‘event cinema’ release in the UK and Ireland within just three days of its opening.
‘The Eras Tour’ film has raked in at least £5.7m in just three days of its cinematic release on Friday evening, with final figures still pending, according to British film mag Screen Daily.
The pop icon’s event cinema film – which refers to the use of theatres to show live and recorded entertainment excluding traditional films – was shown across 651 sites, each taking in an average of £8,802.
Running for almost three hours, it breaks a previous record, held by last year’s “Prima Facie” featuring Jodie Comer, released by National Theatre Live, with a total gross of £5.5m.
It ranks as the 10th-highest opening for any film in the UK and Ireland this year in an autumn perk-up for cinemas since the success of Barbenheimer this summer.
“We saw an incredible response from Swifties across the UK and Ireland,” said Tim Richards, founder and chief of cinema operator Vue International.
“Taylor Swift’s The Eras Tour was number one at the UK and Ireland box office this weekend by a considerable distance, having already smashed the previous Event Cinema pre-sales record and tracking to achieve the highest ever box office takings for an event cinema release in the UK and Ireland,” he added.
Swift’s movie, which gives audiences a far cheaper alternative to attending her sold out concert, is now set to challenge the reigning champion, ‘Michael Jackson: This Is It,’ as the highest-grossing concert film ever in the UK. The controversial star’s movie generated £9.8m in 2009.
Globally, the film’s opening amassed $130m (£107m), largely thanks to North American demand. It surpasses the previous record held by “Michael Jackson: This Is It,” which debuted at $74.3m (£61.1m) worldwide in 2009.
According to AMC, the film’s distributor, it could end up bringing in a total of $275m (£226m) worldwide.