Is Taylor Swift better than Barbie? Beating out Spider-Man? Not in your wildest dreams.
Prior to the release of the Taylor Swift: Eras Tour screening in movie theaters, the Hollywood trade sites were reporting ticket sales were shaking off billion-dollar movies such as Barbie and Spider-Man: No Way Home.
It was reported by sites such as Deadline that Friday ticket sales were actually outpacing Barbie‘s $70.5 million and Spider-Man: No Way Home‘s $121.9 million massive Friday grosses.
Where are the Swifties?
However, the Swifties failed to show up to even come close to those numbers, as AMC theaters released the Taylor Swift: Eras Tour box office numbers.
Taylor Swift’s Friday’s box office? $37.5 million.
That’s half of Barbie and a third of Spider-Man.
The Taylor Swift: Eras Tour weekend box office also underperformed compared to estimates.
The weekend box office reported by AMC is $92.8 million, while estimates offered $100 million or more.
Barbie‘s opening weekend? $162 million. Spider-Man: No Way Home? $260 million.
Worth a mention is that all the estimates were not from AMC themselves, but sites such as Deadline relying on third-party “analysts” — which let’s be honest, the “analysts” were probably full of complete BS and were only meant to overinflate the numbers to increase hype and to give Deadline a good headline to manipulate fans (much like Deadline did recently with its NYCC article).
We also see the box office for the Eras Tour was front-loaded, which means the Swifties came out in droves on Friday but the box office wasn’t as strong on Saturday and Sunday.
It will be interesting to see if Taylor Swift has legs and if the Swifties go see multiple screenings or if the Eras Tour fades away.
Taylor Swift: Eras Tour box office:
- Friday – $37,525,947 million
- Saturday – $32,003,145 Million
- Sunday – $23,275,586 Million
Is the Taylor Swift: Eras Tour good?
While the Hollywood trades may have created fake hype surrounding the box office draw, the numbers released by AMC are nothing to cry about. So no bad blood there.
The event only cost around $20-30 million to make, and it comes at a time when the movie studios aren’t releasing any good movies, so the movie theaters benefit big time.
I was at a Tea Party concert last Friday night, and before we went in, a buddy of mine first stopped at an AMC to pick up his Taylor Swift popcorn bucket and drink container for a screening held at a later date. I guess the tin containers have sold out and are landing on eBay for some big bucks.
After the concert, we ran into three Swifties who just left AMC and we asked what they thought. They said they loved it, the theater was jam-packed, and the audience was singing, standing up, and having a great time.
Sure enough, the Taylor Swift Rotten Tomatoes Score is at 100% from critics and 99% from fans.
