Her triumphant tour has not yet ended when Taylor Swift is already releasing a documentary about her concerts in theaters, which could shake up a convalescent film industry, challenge the hegemony of the studios and consecrate her economic empire.
Taylor Swift: The Eras TourThe feature film has already broken the one-day pre-sale record in the United States at the end of August, with $37 million in revenue.
It could exceed 100 million in its first weekend of operation, from October 13 to 15, according to Jeff Bock, of the specialist firm Exhibitor Relations.
“It may be the most important film of the fall (…) which is quite incredible,” explains the analyst, although the filmed concert will only be visible for the moment in the United States.
As a sign that the studios fear this release, they have postponed the arrival in theaters of several films initially scheduled for the same weekend or on close dates, in particular The Exorcist – Devotion.
“No artist is so powerful”
Not content with producing her film without going through Hollywood, which is barely recovering from the pandemic and facing a prolonged strike by actors and screenwriters, Taylor Swift also took the liberty of announcing it less than a month and a half before its release.
The operation already promises to be lucrative for the thirty-year-old, whose feature film has only cost between 10 and 20 million dollars, according to the information site. Disk.
According to the specialized site Billboardwill share 57% of the revenue from ticket sales with the AMC cinema chain, a proportion equivalent to what studios usually receive.
“No artist is that powerful today,” Ralph Jaccodine, a professor at Berklee Music University, told AFP.
The Eras Tour is first and foremost a monster world tour that currently has 146 dates. According to the professional magazine dedicated to the performing arts Pollstar, each concert generates $13 million in revenue, which would bring the total to about $1.9 billion. Never has an artist or group crossed the symbolic billion-dollar threshold with a tour.
“Tours where people have to pay $700 to $800 for a seat in the back of the stadium are unheard of,” Ralph Jaccodine emphasizes.
“An activist for artists’ rights”
“It’s very bold in terms of strategy,” said Carolyn Sloane, an economics professor at the University of Chicago. “He has a lot to lose (…) but he can afford to take risks.”
Before the film, the most prominent example was the artist’s re-recording of her first six albums, for which she did not own the rights to the original recordings.
“I think artists should own their work,” he explained in 2019, after unsuccessfully trying to buy the tapes.
“She is an activist for artists’ rights,” considers Ralph Jaccodine. “She built her own brand…and every time she became more successful, she took more and more control.”
“A brilliant economic strategy”
Taylor Swift is getting closer every day to becoming the first billionaire singer (Forbes estimates her fortune at $740 million) solely thanks to her music.
Before her, Prince, George Michael, Jay-Z and Kanye West had already fought to recover their recordings, but none of them had thought of producing a new version.
“He has a brilliant economic strategy and goes where other artists have never ventured,” insists Carolyn Sloane.
Taylor Swift did not hesitate to make an event of the release of each of her old re-recorded albums, at the risk of boring the public. A winning bet that allowed him to consolidate the younger audience, who had not experienced periods of Taylor Swift EITHER Bravehis first work.
In the same way, The tour of the ages, the film, “will give access to his concert to people who couldn’t buy a ticket,” describes Ralph Jaccodine. Other musicians and singers have already released concert or tour films in theaters, but “we have never seen in theaters a film of an artist at the height of his popularity like the one we will experience with Swift in October,” anticipates Jeff Bock.
Source: BFM TV
