Taylor Swift Box Office: ‘Eras Tour’ Earns $2.8M From Surprise Thursday Shows Before Sparks Start to Fly

Shake it off.

Taylor Swift: The Eras Tour began its box office run with a modest $2.8 million in gross receipts from surprise Thursday night shows added at 11 p.m. in North America. While that’s a good number, it would have been much more if the shows had attracted large audiences. As it stood, there was little time to advertise the early screenings. Furthermore, fans had already purchased tickets and were unable to redeem them for the first screenings.

The female-powered TAylor Swift: The Eras Tour it is expected to be a historic cinematic event Barbie was this summer. Megadistributor AMC Theaters, which is distributing the film at its locations and other theaters, is predicting a record-breaking worldwide opening of $150 million, including $100 million domestically. Some think that number could be higher, with a chance of nearly $200 million, based on skyrocketing demand and numerous sold-out shows.

The film, which is playing in 8,000 theaters in more than 90 countries around the world, has grossed more than $100 million in pre-sales. (AMC’s guidance is $150 million, including $100 million domestically).

An exuberant Swift announced on social media late Wednesday that fans no longer had to wait until 1 p.m. local time on October 13 to see Eras tour in the US and Canada.

But on Thursday afternoon, the floor plans of numerous movie theaters, including top theaters in New York City and Los Angeles, showed that many of the newly added shows on Thursday evenings and Friday afternoons were far from full to nearly empty (Imax and Dolby screenings performed well). better, but it was hard to find a sold out showing).

One likely explanation according to box office sources: Swifties want to be the very first to see it Eras tour had already bought tickets for Friday evening, or for the weekend.

Normally they could have asked to switch tickets and go Thursday evening or early Friday afternoon instead when the shows now start at 2pm, but Eras tickets are non-refundable (a virtually unheard of practice in the movie business).

Not surprisingly, Thursday night’s audience was 74 percent female, with 76 percent of ticket buyers between the ages of 18 and 35, according to the relatively light sample surveyed by PostTrak’s exit polls. The film drew great scores.

This summer, Barbie scored $22.3 million in Thursday’s previews, but that film had a regular release. Eras tour is programmed more as an event.

More to come.