Theaters look to Taylor Swift to shake off box office strike pain
By Dawn Chmielewski and Lisa Richwine
LOS ANGELES (Reuters) — Cultural juggernaut Taylor Swift packed stadiums on her concert tour, made voting cool again by urging her fans to do their civic duty and had teenage girls tuning in to professional football games to see her cheer from the stands.
In her next act, Swift is poised to lift another corner of the economy: a movie box office still trying to recover from the pandemic and Hollywood strikes.
When «Taylor Swift: The Eras Tour» hits movie theaters on Oct. 13, it will serve as a high-profile test of whether such «alternative content» as a concert film can bring audiences to cinemas, creating more consistency for a business that ebbs and flows with the theatrical release calendar.
Swift’s film could bring in $120 million in its opening weekend, according to box office analysts and studio executives, delivering a jolt to ticket sales for AMC Theatres, Cineworld and other chains.
But the vaunted Taylor Swift effect, together with a concert film from fellow pop superstar Beyonce, may not completely make up for holes created by Hollywood strikes.
The labor unrest has interrupted the movie industry’s comeback, stalling momentum from summer hits such as “Spider-Man: Across the Spider-Verse,” “Barbie” and “Oppenheimer” ahead of the crucial holiday season, which accounts for roughly one-quarter of the industry’s annual box office revenue, according to research firm Comscore.
“Swift and Beyonce will certainly fill some of the gaps,” said Box Office Pro senior analyst Shawn Robbins. “Still, it's probably asking too much for those titles alone to completely make up for the revenue of 'Dune: Part 2,' 'Kraven the Hunter,' and the next 'Ghostbusters.'”
All three of those anticipated
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