Taylor Swift tour movie sets records, opening with $93M for AMC
Kevin Winter
At the movies this weekend, it was Taylor Swift's world and other films were just living in it.
Taylor Swift: The Eras Tour (NYSE:AMC), a document of the pop superstar's latest tour, set concert-movie records in dominating weekend box office, ending with $92.8M domestically for the interval.
That's a full 70% of the domestic industry box office, and it makes for the second-best October domestic opening of all time (Joker drew $96.2M in October 2019).
Meanwhile, on a worldwide basis the film drew $123.5M. Both totals ended up just slightly behind estimates provided earlier in the weekend, but still turned heads. It became the highest-grossing concert film ever.
The success is especially notable as Swift bypassed traditional distributors to deal directly with AMC Entertainment (AMC), which managed distribution to other companies in a total of more than 8,000 locations worldwide.
AMC stock (AMC) may have already baked in the success with news of heavy ticket presales, as it had fallen more than 3% by midday Monday and was down more than 1% by mid-afternoon.
Swift's film far outpaced weekend rivals, who had largely cleared a space for the dominant opening.
A distant second place went to Exorcist: The Believer (NASDAQ:CMCSA), which reached $11M in its second weekend in theaters, according to Comscore. That brought it to a cumulative domestic total of $44.9M, since it had moved up to open a week early to dodge the Swift juggernaut.
The top five films were rounded out by Paw Patrol: The Mighty Movie (NASDAQ:PARA) (PARAA), with $7M; Saw X (NYSE:LGF.A) (LGF.B), with $5.7M; and The Creator (DIS), with $4.3M.
Taylor Swift isn't the only concert-film bonanza that AMC is counting on: It's also distributing Renaissance: A Film by BeyoncÃ© on Dec. 1.
Cinema tickers: AMC Entertainment (AMC); Cineworld (OTCPK:CNNWQ); Cinemark (CNK); (IMAX); Marcus (MCS); Reading International (RDI); Cineplex (CGX:CA); National CineMedia (NCMI).

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