In its second weekend Taylor Swift: The Eras Tour grossed another $32 million, humiliating Leonardo DiCaprio’s Killers of the Flower Moon, which debuted to just $22 million.
Why is this important?
Here’s why…
Taylor Swift: The Eras Tour was produced by … Taylor Swift and her team. It was also distributed by … Taylor Swift and her team. Swift Inc. froze Hollywood out and went straight to the theater chains. The result has been a box office triumph. In its first weekend, The Eras Tour grossed $93 million domestic and $124 million worldwide. After only three days, Swift already had the highest-grossing concert film in history. Moreover, she enjoyed the second biggest October opening weekend ever. Only Joker (2019) topped her, and…
Hollywood had nothing to do with any of it.
Hollywood did not make one penny off of it.
And…
This so terrifies Hollywood that Hollywood’s palace guards at the far-left Hollywood Reporter spent 1,500 words last week spinning Swift’s box office triumph into a mistake. And what was the mistake? She didn’t distribute The Eras Tour through the same studios that advertise at the far-left Hollywood Reporter.
Here’s what I wrote Friday:
Creators and producers are now thinking the exact opposite. They are now looking at what Swift Inc. just pulled off and wondering why they can’t do the same. Barbara Broccoli owns James Bond outright. Why pay Sony all that money when she can cut a deal with AMC or Regal or both? Post-Dark Knight, Christopher Nolan has been producing blockbusters unattached to studio-owned properties. What’s to stop him from going directly to exhibitors?
And now, Swift’s second weekend has humiliated a major Hollywood studio (Apple Studios), an Oscar-winning director (Martin Scorsese), and two of Hollywood’s biggest stars (Leonardo DiCaprio, Robert De Niro). Additionally, Killers of the Flower Moon is a prestige picture enjoying rapturous reviews.
Flower Moon’s $22 million opening also qualifies as a stand-alone disappointment. Projections had the Oscar bait opening between $29 and $38 million, and this sucker cost $200 million to produce. It’s not a disaster. Apple produced Flower Moon to attract subscribers to Apple TV+, which is where it will head soon.
By Monday, The Eras Tour’s domestic gross will hover right around $150 million, and instead of handing 10 to 20 percent to the Hollywood studios, Swift Inc. just proved to every content creator that with a hot enough property, you don’t need Hollywood’s vaunted distribution system.
Beyoncé Inc. already figured it out. Renaissance: A Film by Beyoncé hits theaters on December 1, and Hollywood has nothing to do with it.
John Nolte’s debut novel Borrowed Time (Bombardier Books) is available today. You can read an exclusive excerpt here and a review of the novel here.