Taylor Swift Eras Tour Box Office: Second Best Opening of October

Taylor Swift and AMC have collected the receipts and the results are in: The Eras Tour concert film is the second highest domestic opening in October of all time.

The film grossed $92.8 million in its first three days in theaters, falling short of expectations from AMC, which had predicted a box office take of $95 million to $97 million, and box office analysts’ expectations, which had expected an opening of over $100 million predicted.

Still, Swift’s big-screen debut is an enormous success given its genre and the limitations of its release. The Eras Tour concert film has already broken records and will likely break a few more before it’s over.

Box office analysts admitted their predictions were too high, but told CNBC that the film was a “unicorn” in the cinema world. Never before has a concert film generated so much excitement in ticket sales so quickly or created such great demand among theater chains. Added to this was the base price for tickets, which was 40% higher than traditional cinema releases. Experts believed that the film could see a larger increase in overall box office collections.

However, the film also faced headwinds. Thursday’s previews were announced less than a day before tickets became available, and Friday’s showings didn’t begin until 6 p.m. local time. This meant that many viewers had likely already secured tickets to the film later in the weekend, and the film was missing out on the business that the early Friday screenings could have generated.

The Eras Tour film only managed to gross $2.8 million in last-minute previews on Thursday evening, making it a total of $37.5 million on opening day. Meanwhile the highest opening is in October, Warner Bros.’ 2019’s “Joker” secured $13.3 million in Thursday previews, for an opening day of $39.3 million. Over the weekend, “Joker” earned $96.2 million domestically.

The third highest opening in October was Sony’s 2021’s “Venom: Let There Be Carnage,” which grossed $11.6 million in Thursday night previews, led to a Friday opening of $37.4 million.

Additionally, Swift’s film opened in 3,855 theaters, according to Comscore, more than ever for a concert film, while “Joker” opened in nearly 4,400 theaters, according to Comscore. “Venom: Let There Be Carnage” opened in 4,225 locations.

Going forward, comparisons between Swift’s film and other releases will be difficult since the Eras Tour only takes place on weekends. This also makes it difficult to predict the film’s second-week decline, as there are no accurate comparisons to concert films and it is unclear how the lack of midweek screenings might affect next weekend’s attendance. Typically, blockbuster releases fall between 50 and 70% in the second weekend.

The Eras Tour is scheduled to end in cinemas on November 5th.

AMC reported that the Eras Tour concert film grossed $123.5 million worldwide, on pace to surpass 2009’s $262.5 million international haul of “Michael Jackson’s This Is It.” surpass.