Taylor Swift performs onstage during the Taylor Swift | The Eras Tour at Lumen Field on July 22, 2023 in Seattle, Washington.
Mat Hayward/tas23 | Getty Images Entertainment | Getty Images
Move over, Barbenheimer. This next big movie duo will make your head spin.
A concert film of Taylor Swift’s “The Eras Tour” is hitting movie theaters on Friday, Oct. 13 – the same day as the next installment of the “Exorcist” horror franchise, making for another potential wild movie double feature. Call it Exorswift. Soon after the news broke about the Eras release date, the #Exorswift hashtag started to catch on.
Earlier this summer, Warner Bros. Discovery’s “Barbie” and Universal’s “Oppenheimer” hit theaters on the same day, leading to a double-feature cultural event and driving massive box office sales.
“The Exorcist: Believer,” produced by horror film studio Blumhouse, takes place 50 years after the original film. It will be distributed by Universal. The film stars Leslie Odom Jr. of “Hamilton” fame and Ellen Burstyn, who starred in the 1973 demonic possession classic.
Could pop star royalty like Swift and two young girls possessed by the devil have the same effect?
Inflation-adjusted worldwide gross: $2.25 billion Actual gross: $441.1 million Year released: 1973 Based on the 1971 William Peter Blatty novel of the same name, “The Exorcist” is the second highest grossing film of all time, when adjusted for inflation. The film chronicles the demonic possession of a young girl and her exorcism by two priests, and has been named the scariest movie of all time by Entertainment Weekly. The success of the film spawned a number of sequels, which were released in 19
Photo: Warner Bros.
“The Eras Tour has been the most meaningful, electric experience of my life so far and I’m overjoyed to tell you that it’ll be coming to the big screen soon,” Swift posted on Thursday on X, the site formerly known as Twitter.
Swift’s concert film documents the wildly popular tour that raked in millions and was on its way to hit a record-breaking $1 billion in sales earlier this summer.
The film will play at the nation’s largest theater chains including AMC, Regal and Cinemark on weekends until Nov. 5. AMC shares were up about 1% midday similar to Cinemark’s stock.
As soon as tickets went on sale, fans encountered wait times and lags at both AMC Theatres’ website and app.
“Thank you for your patience as we experience high traffic volume. We have proactively created this queue for all visitors,” a message on AMC’s site read. “When it is your turn, you will have 10 minutes to begin your TAYLOR SWIFT | THE ERAS TOUR Concert Film ticket purchase or other online visit.”
Notably, AMC Stubs rewards members will not be able to apply the loyalty program’s perks to their purchase. Meaning, they will have to pay full price for tickets. AMC Stubs “A-List” is a monthly membership that gives users the ability to see three movies each week with no fees for reservations or upgrading to premium format screens.
The movie theater company noted that more than 3 million fans attended the tour in its first leg of its U.S. run, shattering concert sales records.
“It would be unwise to underestimate the power of Taylor Swift to draw legions of Swifties to the multiplex, but the release of the also could draw new fans looking to get in on the Eras Tour experience,” said Paul Dergarabedian, senior media analyst at Comscore. “This could propel an unprecedented opening weekend that could perhaps top $100 million.
“A $162 million debut was at one point unimaginable for ‘Barbie’ and the Taylor Swift phenomenon is a powerful force that could be on track for a monumental debut in mid-October and this is great for movie theaters,” he said.
Disclosure: Comcast is the parent company of NBCUniversal and CNBC. NBCUniversal is the distributor of “Oppenheimer” and “The Exorcist: Believer.”