Taylor Swift's concert documentary, The Eras Tour, which opens in 8,500 cinemas in over 100 countries on Friday, October 13, is already shaping up to be one of the biggest successes for AMC, an American movie theater chain. More than a week before its release, it has passed the $100 million (€94.2 million) mark in worldwide pre-sale ticket sales. The feature-length film is expected to breathe new life into the film industry across the Atlantic, convalescing after the Covid-19 pandemic and hampered by the writers' strike, which has just ended, and the actors' strike, which is still ongoing. The concert movie will enable the artist's fans to see her perform, especially those who won't be able to afford a concert ticket, sold at astronomical prices.
A formidable businesswoman – her fortune is valued by Forbes at $740 million – according to the Billboard website, the 33-year-old singer is set to receive 57% of the ticket price sold by AMC, and the movie, which according to news site Puck cost between $10 million and $20 million, could become one of the biggest blockbusters of the fall.
The box office authority Exhibitor Relations expects it to exceed $100 million in box-office receipts in its first weekend, and it could reach a good billion dollars by the end of the star's 146-date world tour, at the end of 2024. The Eras Tour's release has been of some concern to Hollywood competitors: the American release of The Exorcist: Believer by David Gordon Green was brought forward by one week, to October 6.
Both on stage and in the movies, the star seems to be affecting the entire US economy. In early September, Fed (Federal Reserve) President John Williams acknowledged that the "Taylor Swift factor," as it's called, has boosted the US economy in recent months. "There is clearly an impact of the Taylor Swift factor on consumer spending because people were spending on parties and hotels, and all of that was a big phenomenon," he said. Quoted by Agence France-Presse, economist Maria Psyllou, from the British University of Birmingham, has estimated that the star's six concerts in Los Angeles in August boosted the county's GDP by $320 million.
She not only has an economic effect. There is also a political one. For the Democratic governor of California, Gavin Newsom, the singer of "Cruel Summer" and "Blank Space," who has declared her support for Joe Biden since 2020, will have an impact on the presidential election.
On Instagram on September 19, Swift encouraged her fans to get involved in the run-up to the 2024 vote. Immediately, the Vote.org website recorded 35,000 new registrations. The governor has hailed "what she was able to accomplish in getting young people activated to consider that they have a voice and they should have a voice in the next election." And he's keeping his fingers crossed that the star will swing the election to the Democrats, especially in the more tangential suburbs, where she draws thousands of fans.