Historically, there have been some major concert films that have done well at the box office... but they don't tend to put up what we think of as "blockbuster numbers." For example, Jon M Chu's Justin Bieber: Never Say Never was considered a huge success when it made $29.5 million in its opening weekend and finished its time playing on the big screen making $99 million worldwide. Those aren't sales that are competing with any film from the Marvel Cinematic Universe.
Sam Wrench's Taylor Swift: The Eras Tour is a completely different story.
Playing on the big screen this weekend, the new concert film has proven to be an unparalleled success, and it's one of the biggest box office stories of the year. Check out the full Top 10 below, and join me after for analysis.
| TITLE | WEEKEND GROSS | DOMESTIC GROSS | LW | THTRS |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| 1. Taylor Swift: The Eras Tour* | $97,000,000 | $97,000,000 | N/A | 3,855 |
| 2. The Exorcist: Believer | $11,000,000 | $44,927,000 | 1 | 3,684 |
| 3. PAW Patrol: The Mighty Movie | $7,000,000 | $49,886,716 | 2 | 3,707 |
| 4. Saw X | $5,700,000 | $41,429,120 | 3 | 3,058 |
| 5. The Creator | $4,300,000 | $32,405,744 | 4 | 2,960 |
| 6. A Haunting In Venice | $2,052,000 | $38,993,956 | 6 | 2,290 |
| 7. The Blind | $2,023,458 | $13,973,400 | 5 | 1,164 |
| 8. The Nun II | $1,615,000 | $83,747,686 | 7 | 2,128 |
| 9. The Equalizer 3 | $960,000 | $90,567,493 | 9 | 1,524 |
| 10. Dumb Money | $920,000 | $12,626,141 | 8 | 2,276 |
Taylor Swift: The Eras Tour Has The Biggest Opening Weekend For Any Concert Film Ever
Prior to this weekend, the record for the biggest opening weekend for a concert film was set in 2008 when Bruce Hendricks' Hannah Montana and Miley Cyrus: Best of Both Worlds Concert Tour played in theaters. Albeit playing on just 683 screens, that movie made $31.1 million in three days... and that looks like pennies compared to what Taylor Swift: The Eras Tour has done. The new concert film debuted in nearly 4,000 locations across the United States and Canada this weekend, and it made a stunning $97 million (according to The Numbers).
That means that it is only just about $3 million from unseating Justin Bieber: Never Say Never as the highest grossing concert film of all time... and, again, that's just from its opening.
This isn't just a big deal for the genre either; the film just had one of the most significant opening weekends of 2023. Box office numbers for the film ended up being bigger than the Friday-to-Sunday starts for Rob Marshall's The Little Mermaid ($95.6 million), Christopher Nolan's Oppenheimer ($82.5 million), and Chad Stahelski's John Wick: Chapter 4 ($73.8 million). It is the sixth biggest debut and already the 19th highest grossing title of the year so far.
It should be noted that this is something that the industry definitely saw coming, as demonstrated a few weeks ago when Blumhouse and Universal Pictures adjusted the release schedule for David Gordon Green's The Exorcist: Believer.
The success of Taylor Swift: The Eras Tour is representative of the titular singer's popularity today, and while one has to wonder if that's singularly responsible for the outrageous box office numbers, that's not going to stop the industry from trying to replicate the success. There are already plans for Renaissance: A Film by Beyoncé to try and set the world on fire this December, and one can imagine that we will see a few more come together in 2024.
While we wait to see the larger impact that the film's earnings have on the industry, there will continue to be a lot of eyes on Taylor Swift: The Eras Tour in the coming weeks. What kind of legs will it show? Just how many times will passionate Swifties go to watch it while it's playing on the big screen? Will casual fans give it a go in the weeks ahead.? You can expect it to be a subject of this box office column for the next few weeks.
The Exorcist: Believer Has A Better Than Expected Weekend-To-Weekend Drop Following Its Opening
Things didn't look particularly great for The Exorcist: Believer last weekend. While the movie was expected to be the big horror highlight of Spooky Season 2023, it arrived in theaters riding a wave of bad buzz from mostly negative critical responses, and it had a softer opening than expected – earning $26.5 million when estimates suggested a $30 million-plus start. The future didn't look bright for the legacyquel... but now there is what we could call a silver lining to be found in its second weekend.
The Exorcist: Believer added $11 million to its domestic total over the last three days, which represents a weekend-to-weekend drop of 58 percent. In the post-pandemic box office world, any negatively reviewed feature is generally in good shape if it's able to keep its drop under 60 percent, but what looks particularly good is how the results look compared to David Gordon Green's Halloween trilogy. The new Exorcist movie only made half of what Gordon Green's first legacyquel brought in when it was released in 2018, but the weekend-to-weekend drops are almost identical (the well-received Halloween went down 59 percent).
The Exorcist: Believer is certainly in better shape than both Halloween Kills and Halloween Ends, which saw their ticket sales respectively fall 71 percent and 80 percent – though that's not really a fair comparison given that the sequels were released simultaneously on Peacock, and there is no question that streaming availability ate into box office performance.
One can imagine that there wasn't a tremendous degree of crossover between the audiences for The Exorcist: Believer and Taylor Swift: The Eras Tour, but it will be interesting to see how David Gordon Green's movie fares amid the arrival of Martin Scorsese's Killers Of The Flower Moon – which isn't a competing genre film but is aiming at the same age demographic.
After Saw X Crosses $40 Million Domestically, How High Can It Climb In The Box Office Records For The Saw Franchise?
Arriving at the end of September, Kevin Greutert's Saw X got literally pushed aside in the box office rankings by The Exorcist: Believer, but it is demonstrating some fortitude on the big screen as we get closer to Halloween. It is the first in its franchise that can be described as "critically acclaimed," and while sticking around in the Top 5 this weekend, it has added $5.7 million to its domestic total and has earned $41.4 million in the region overall thus far.
This is already a big bounce back for the Saw series, which twice previously failed to make significant comebacks with Michael and Peter Spierig's Jigsaw in 2017 and Darren Lynn Bousman's Spiral: From The Book Of Saw from 2021. In addition to having a bigger opening weekend than both of those titles, Saw X has also already outgrossed them in the Untied States and Canada (Jigsaw only made $38.1 million during its theatrical run in the two countries, and Spiral made $23.2 million). It has also made more money than Kevin Greutert's Saw VI in the market, as that film only made $27.7 million during its theatrical run in 2009.
Domestically, Saw X is now the seventh biggest movie in the franchise, and it will only need to make another $15 million or so to climb up three spots and surpass David Hackl's Saw V. It's very unlikely that it will end up becoming the highest grossing title in the series, as Darren Lynn Bousman's Saw II earned $87 million at home in 2005.
Unfortunately, while things are going well in North America, the new release isn't doing quite as well as its predecessors overseas. The $41.4 million made at home represents a shocking 63.8 percent of the film's worldwide gross, and that split is usually much more even. Combining the earnings of all the features, only about 48 percent of the ticket sales have historically come from the United States and Canada, making Saw X an anomaly.
As noted earlier, next week's big wide release is the latest epic from Martin Scorsese, and it will be fascinating to see how Killers Of The Flower Moon ends up competing with the box office goliath that is Taylor Swift: The Eras Tour. Be sure to head back here to CinemaBlend next Sunday for a full breakdown of the film's performance and check out our 2023 Movie Release Calendar to discover all of the titles set to hit theaters between now and the end of the year.
