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With ten studio albums and twelve Grammy awards to her credit, she is a celebrated artist, filmmaker, philanthropist, performer, and composer. There's no denying that Taylor Swift is one of the most influential musicians of the twenty-first century, and her enormous fan base will never let you forget it. "The Eras Tour," her most recent run of international concerts, is expected to break all previous records for tour revenue. Therefore, it should come as no surprise that Taylor Swift: The Eras Tour, a concert film intended for theatrical release, has made over $100 million in box office revenue only from presales worldwide. Swift has demonstrated throughout the course of her 17-year career that she is a formidable force in the music business. But now that the Eras Tour movie has been released, she is making a name for herself in the film industry.
A Brief Lesson
The question now isn't whether Taylor Swift will have a significant impact on the film business, given that her tour, Taylor Swift: The Eras Tour, is predicted to shatter box office records. That's a rather complex subject, so let's go back in time and see how the Eras Tour movie is setting a significant precedent for the cinematic experience. Since launching her music career in 2006, Taylor Swift has put out ten studio albums and written or co-authored more than 200 songs on her catalog. Since she's moved from her original roots in Country music to Pop and has dabbled in Indie, Alternative, and Folk over the years, her career as an artist cannot be summed up by a single genre.
She is a talented composer, vocalist, and musician who always shines through, regardless of the genre her music may be in at any given time. Although Swift is adept at crafting a cheerful and catchy hit song for the radio, a closer listen reveals that her lyrics are just as poignant as old poetry. In fact, her lyrical is so beautiful that amusing "Taylor Swift or Shakespeare?" comparisons can be found all over the internet and social media. But in 2019, when businessman and music producer Scooter Braun acquired Swift's former company, Big Machine Records, he also acquired the master recordings of her first six studio albums. This was when everything changed. Swift signed with Republic Records and Universal Music Group after leaving Big Machine in 2018, however she was unable to get her original masters back despite her best efforts. She claimed that the record label had only provided disadvantageous terms.
Swift, who has been a strong supporter of the idea that artists should be able to lawfully own their work, declared she was going to rerecord every album she had released in order to reclaim full authorship of her work after allegations of Braun's domineering and uncooperative behavior made headlines. Taylor Swift has rerecorded and published her songs Fearless (Taylor's Version), RED (Taylor's Version), and Speak Now (Taylor's Version) thus far. Her next release, 1989 (Taylor's Version), is scheduled to release on October 27. Swift's return to her whole discography made it inevitable that her much-lauded reclamation would eventually take the form of a world tour.
A Tour of Seismic Stadiums
Appropriately dubbed "The Eras Tour," Taylor Swift embarked on her global, arena-filled journey in March 2023. Since then, she has added more U.S. and overseas dates and extended the tour no fewer than ten times, increasing the current concert schedule to an incredible 146 dates. Demand for the Eras Tour was so great that it sold out in minutes and even brought down Ticketmaster servers, setting new records for demand. Swift ignited a fervor among fans so intense that it evoked memories of the heyday of iconic musicians like Michael Jackson and The Beatles. As of right now, The Eras Tour has made stops in 20 American cities and Mexico. After that, it will travel to South America, making stops in significant cities like Rio de Janeiro, Brazil, and Buenos Aires, Argentina, before taking a short hiatus for the holidays.
After that, the Eras Tour will resume in the new year with stops in Singapore, Japan, and Australia before the European leg begins and lasts for the remainder of 2024. As things stand, Swift's last show of this tour won't happen until November of next year. Her complex production, which has been dubbed "the most impressive stadium show ever conceived," is enormous, lasting over three and a half hours each night and containing 44 songs divided into 10 different eras of her career. With its projected total revenue of $2.2 billion, the Eras Tour is expected to outperform initial projections and be hailed as a boon to the American economy. An estimated $5 billion in consumer spending was generated in the United States alone by the tour.
Swift's Magnificent Independent Film
Public awareness of the impending release of a tour film quickly grew after fans at a few of Taylor Swift's performances at SoFi Stadium in Inglewood, California, noticed the presence of professional camera equipment. And sure enough, in late August, Taylor Swift: The Eras Tour, helmed by Sam Wrench, was revealed. There is no documentary in the movie; it is just footage from three performances that took place in August at SoFi Stadium. This is contrasted with her 2020 Sundance debut documentary Miss Americana. Swift produced the Eras tour film on her own dime, financed it entirely with her own money, and arranged distribution directly with large theater chains like AMC. Taylor Swift: The Eras Tour is now touring more than 90 countries worldwide as of its October 13 release date. Since Blumhouse accelerated the release of The Exorcist: Believer, the tour has not faced any significant competition.
With a duration of two hours and forty-eight minutes, the Eras Tour movie falls barely short of Oppenheimer's massive three hours. Taylor Swift: The Eras Tour is almost three hours long, although it noticeably lacks a few songs from her live set list, including as the 1989 single "Wildest Dreams," the Speak Now song "Long Live," the Lover song "The Archer," and her duet with the HAIM sisters on the song "No Body No Crime." Fan favorites like the folklore "cardigan" and "seven" (interlude) have also been eliminated. The inclusion of the well-liked surprise tune "You're On Your Own, Kid" and the timeless "Our Song" from her self-titled debut album probably outweigh any displeasure this may create.
According to the artist herself, she supports wearing historical clothing, friendship bracelets, singing, dancing, and other activities when the concert film is screened. Moviegoers who would want a more laid-back viewing experience have responded differently to this than those who would gladly approach it as if it were the tour itself. Despite some criticism, this isn't really any different from other screenings that aim to elicit a high level of energy from their intended audience; in fact, some online moviegoers have noted that recent showings of A24's restoration of Talking Heads' Stop Making Sense have also become suitably rowdy. In any case, Taylor Swift: The Eras Tour hopes to go down as a really historic occasion.
Barbie and Taylor's Combined Feminine Influence
Taylor's picture is the only recent example of a comparable theatergoing fad, except as the current summertime "Barbenheimer" mania. Crowds flocked to see not one, but two very different films, Oppenheimer by Christopher Nolan and Barbie by Greta Gerwig, which took in over $890 million and $1 billion at the box office, respectively. Following the COVID-19 lockdowns, the film industry has been finding it difficult to regain momentum, with the public showing little true excitement for titles other than superhero movies. Avatar: The Way of Water, Fast & Furious, and Top Gun: Maverick are a few extreme examples, although the majority of their intended audience is unquestionably male.
In many ways, the reaction to the concert film for the Eras tour is similar to the Barbenheimer trend: people dress up, go out on multiple viewings with a group of friends, and capture pictures and videos to post on social media. Unlike your typical comic-book movie, these film "events" are drawing huge crowds of people back to the big screen; according to estimates, 22% of Barbie's audience hasn't visited a theater in a while. Moviegoing has become a more inclusive experience than it has been in recent years, and it is easy to see how Taylor Swift: The Eras Tour and Barbie have both contributed to this.
One thing that unites Barbie and Taylor Swift is that they are both powerful, important women who actively provide opportunities for young girls everywhere. Barbie is a female-driven film that dominated the summer box office and is now regarded as one of the year's most successful and well-liked movies. In the end, it proved that when anything is created especially for them, women do visit movies in large numbers. This further demonstrates that Hollywood has no justification for refusing to fund female-oriented films out of concern that the male audience's poor performance would cost them money.
