Promotional film for Taylor Swift’s new album raises US$33 million and leads the US box office

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“The official release party of a showgirl”, basically an 89-minute commercial for Taylor Swift’s new album, sold around US$33 million in tickets (the equivalent of R$176.1 million) in cinemas in the United States and Canada between last Friday (3) and this Sunday (5), according to Comscore, which compiles box office data. More of a set of “DVD extras” than a film, “The official release party” — which will arrive in Brazil on October 24th — was shown in 3,702 theaters in the land of Uncle Sam and easily topped the ranking.

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The audience for the “almost-film” was approximately 88% women and 70% white, according to PostTrak, a film industry research service. Critics didn’t rate “The official release party,” but Swift fans loved what they saw, giving it an A+ in CinemaScore polls. (Swift did not reveal how much it spent on the production, which grossed another US$13 million abroad.)

Taylor Swift fans at the singer’s concert in Engenhão; see photos

Swift’s return to theaters — her tour documentary “The Eras Tour” was one of the biggest box office hits of 2023 — took attention away from Paul Thomas Anderson’s “One Battle After Another,” which fell to second place in its second weekend, grossing an estimated $11.1 million for a total of $42.8 million in the United States and Canada.

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In third place was “Fighter’s Heart: The Smashing Machine”, a sports drama from A24 starring Dwayne Johnson — the former professional fighter known as The Rock —, which performed poorly. The film grossed about $6 million in wide release and cost $40 million to make, not counting marketing expenses.

A24 had been promoting “The Smashing Machine” for months, in part by aggressively positioning Johnson as a possible Oscar nominee. Reviews were positive, but audiences gave it a B- in CinemaScore polls.

'The life of a showgirl' is Taylor Swift's 12th studio album — Photo: Disclosure / Universal Music
‘The life of a showgirl’ is Taylor Swift’s 12th studio album — Photo: Disclosure / Universal Music

In a statement released this Sunday (5), A24 stated that the film, co-starring Emily Blunt and directed by Benny Safdie, “represents a creative achievement that will resonate far beyond its opening weekend.”

Swift’s cinematic move — she announced that “The Official Release Party” would only be shown for one weekend — was an unexpected victory for theater owners, many still trying to recover from the impacts of the Covid-19 pandemic. Multiplexes in the US and Canada had their worst summer since 1981, adjusted for inflation and excluding the pandemic years, when many theaters were closed for long periods.

But Swift’s film wasn’t met with the same enthusiasm in Hollywood. Some studio executives were angry that she launched “The official release party” just two weeks ahead of the release calendar. It has also managed to fill theaters with almost no traditional marketing, relying almost entirely on its own social media and press coverage — while studios spend tens of millions of dollars on promotional campaigns for wide releases.

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