By Steven J. Horowitz
Senior Music Writer
Taylor Swift is starting off 2024 with yet another historic milestone under her belt.
Following the release of “Taylor Swift: The Eras Tour” to United States theaters on October 13, Swift’s movie is officially the highest-grossing film in box office history among concert and documentary films with more than $261.6 million earned globally. The feat comes a week after “The Eras Tour” opened in China, with a tally of $8.7 million following its debut on December 31.
Among concert films, “The Eras Tour” becomes the highest-grossing ever, unseating previous record holder “Michael Jackson’s This Is It,” which opened in 2009 and grossed $261.2 million at the global box office.
Of course, much of the total gross can be attributed to its record-breaking opening weekend. Upon release in October, “The Eras Tour” made $92.8 million in North America and $30.7 million internationally for a cumulative total of $123.5 million, making it the biggest start of all time for a concert film. It unseated 2011’s “Justin Bieber: Never Say Never,” which earned $73 million in the same timeframe. At the domestic box office, it stood as the second-biggest October debut ever behind 2019’s “Joker,” which pulled in $96 million, and had the seventh-biggest opening weekend of 2023.
Swift’s latest accomplishment comes after a non-traditional release for “The Eras Tour.” Instead of opting for distribution from a major studio, she partnered with AMC Theatres, the world’s largest cinema chain. This allowed for Swift, as a producer on the movie, to reap about 57% of ticket sales, while theaters kept the remaining revenue and AMC took a small distribution fee. AMC didn’t exclusively screen the film, though, as it played in 3,855 theaters throughout the U.S. and Canada and 4,527 venues internationally.
“On behalf of all of us at AMC Theatres, I send my congratulations and eternal gratitude to Taylor Swift for her remarkable and record-setting box office performance with ‘Taylor Swift: The Eras Tour‘ concert film,” says AMC Chairman and CEO Adam Aron. “Her spectacular performance delighted fans around the world and serves as another strong reminder about the power of extraordinary filmmaking and magic of movie theaters.”
Those who weren’t able to catch the film in theaters were able to watch at home starting on December 13, when Swift released “The Eras Tour” on streaming. The extended version of the film included the songs “Wildest Dreams,” “The Archer” and “Long Live,” which were not included in the original 2-hours-45-minute run time.
Swift mania shows no signs of slowing down, as the pop superstar plans to resume her Eras Tour on Feb. 7 with a four-night stint at the Tokyo Dome in Japan. She’ll tour the world throughout the year, concluding the trek in Vancouver, BC in December.
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