The Taylor Swift and Beyonce movies have garnered lots of pre-release attention. Photos: AP, Beyonce/Instagram
Two of the most talked about and most anticipated movies of the fall are concert films from Taylor Swift and Beyonce.
That's a good thing for both of the pop musicians' camps, and a weird thing for the movie industry and, you know, actual movie stars.
Well it's a good thing in that the two movies will bring people to theaters. That's something that's desperately needed right now, as the box office has been in the doldrums since the one-two punch of Barbie and Oppenheimer back in July.
Box office analyst Gitesh Pandya points out last weekend's top 10 films at the North American box office grossed US$77.7mil (RM367.95mil), which is less than the same weekend 25 years ago, when Antz opened in theaters and the top 10 grossed US$80.3mil – and that was at 1998 ticket prices.
Moviegoing has been replaced as the dominant form of entertainment in a world where streaming, gaming, staring at TikTok and so many other forms of distraction are available. The pandemic put a rocket booster on that trajectory, and people fell out of the habit of regularly going to movies.
They'll go back for event screenings, which is how the Swift and Beyonce movies have garnered so much pre-release attention.
But if Taylor Swift is now a bigger movie star than Leonardo DiCaprio, whose Killers Of The Flower Moon will open Oct 20 with a fraction of the ticket sales and buzz of Swift's The Eras Tour movie, that's something Hollywood needs to examine going forward.
Concert films have been around since the 1940s and have largely existed in the margins of the movie industry.
Justin Bieber's 2011 doc Justin Bieber: Never Say Never is the top-grossing concert film of all-time, pulling down US$73mil (RM345.69mil) domestically, followed by Michael Jackson's This Is It, which raked in US$72mil (RM340.96mil) in 2009.
Movies from Miley Cyrus (as Hannah Montana), One Direction and Katy Perry, all released in the last 15 years, round out the top five.
That list will change next weekend when Swift's Eras Tour movie hits screens. The document of Swift's summertime phenomenon, the encapsulation of her career until now, has already eclipsed US$100mil (RM473.55mil) in advance ticket sales, its distributor said this week. It's on track to experience one of the biggest openings of the year.
It's a blockbuster at a time when Hollywood desperately needs a blockbuster. The actors strike affected an already iffy fall slate, and November's Dune sequel packed up and headed to March, leaving a sizeable hole in the season's release schedule. So it's a good thing Swift swooped in to save the day, since no one else was stepping up.
Swift has released concert films before, but never in theaters. That's the secret sauce that tickled Beyonce's taste buds, and she's set to follow with her own Renaissance tour film on Dec 1.
Advance tickets went on sale this week and garnered around US$7mil (RM33.14mil) in first-day sales, on par with the first-day sales of recent Avatar and Guardians Of The Galaxy offerings, Deadline reports.
Swift and Beyonce's concert films are both being marketed as star vehicles, the way movies used to be sold.
But at a time when bankable movie stars are fewer and more far between, concepts and properties are leading the box office: Barbie, the year's No 1 movie, didn't smash records because of Margot Robbie, it was because of Barbie, just like Super Mario was the star of the year's second highest grosser, The Super Mario Bros Movie, not Chris Pratt.
Stick Taylor Swift in a romantic comedy and it might not sell, but Taylor Swift doing the thing Taylor Swift does best? Listen to those cash registers ring.
So where are the actual movie stars? DiCaprio's Killers Of The Flower Moon, directed by Martin Scorsese, is tracking for an opening of around US$24mil (RM113.65mil), per Deadline. Which actually isn't bad for a three and-a-half hour period piece, but it's not doing Eras Tour numbers.
DiCaprio's last movie in theaters, Quentin Tarantino's Once Upon A Time In Hollywood, opened to US$41mil (RM194.15mil) on its way to US$235mil (RM1.11bil) in domestic receipts.
It looks like there's not much that will be putting up Eras Tour numbers the rest of the year.
In terms of potential hits, there's the Marvel offering The Marvels on Nov 10 and the Hunger Games prequel, The Ballad Of Songbirds And Snakes, on Nov 17. Then there's... Wonka? Trolls Band Together? The new Aquaman movie?
If you build it, they will come. That was the lesson from Barbenheimer, which got people out of the house and excited about going to the theater to experience something that seemingly everyone else was experiencing, too.
There's just not a lot of other people building it these days. If it's now up to pop stars to fill our movie theaters as well as our arenas and stadiums, at least someone is doing the work. Two tickets for the Harry Styles movie, please. – The Detroit News/Tribune News Service
