The No. 1 exhibitor in the world’s theatrical release of Taylor Swift: The Official Release Party of a Showgirl, is heading toward a $15M-$16M Friday with a current opening forecast of $29M-$31M at 3,700 theaters. Note these figures do not come from AMC Theatres
There are some estimates out there as high $40M, but here is what’s vital to keep in mind. This is very front-loaded with advance tickets sales arguably accounted for (true, we heard that last time with Dragon Ball: Infinity Castle, but that found an audience). The notion here is that all Swifties are making a date to see Showgirl today, because it’s the album’s release date (duh).
Though not any kind of October opening record, the marvel of it all is how the 14x Grammy winner was able to announce a cinematic experience two weeks before its release, steal premium large format screens from Dwayne Johnson’s Smashing Machine, Leonardo DiCaprio’s One Battle After Another, and James Cameron’s re-release of Avatar: The Way of Water and get to this box office threshold with very little P&A.
Already, Swift has broken the Spotify record for most single day streams; her pre-saves for Showgirl were north of 5 million. No word yet where album sales will land for Swift on Showgirl, but she’s the only performer to have sold more than 1M albums a week seven times. Swift’s bestselling album is reportedly 1989, which has sold 15M copies, going platinum stateside and abroad.
It was the best of times, and it was the worst of times at the weekend box office, the latter going to Dwayne Johnson’s arthouse biopic about UFC fighter Mark Kerr, The Smashing Machine, which unfortunately is in a sleeper hold destined for $6M-$7M in 3rd place at 3,345 locations. The net $50M production was funded largely by foreign sales. Smashing Machine hit tracking three weeks ago with a $20M projection. But after Swift announced two weeks ago that she was pushing her way onto The Rock’s weekend, forecasts plummeted. More on that later. No audience score yet on Rotten Tomatoes. Today is $2.7M for the Benny Safdie directed movie. Swift stole Smashing Machine‘s Dolby Cinemas.
In second, is Warner Bros.’ second weekend of One Battle After Another, still armed with its 70MM Imax locations, with an estimated $12.5M (-43%) after a second Friday of $3.6M. If all goes right, domestic hits $44.1M by Sunday and overseas shoots to $56M take after a second frame $17M haul for a $100.1M global running cume. Knock on wood.
MORE….
The post ‘Taylor Swift: Showgirl’ Struts $29M-$31M, ‘The Smashing Machine’ Hits The Mat With $6M-$7M, ‘One Battle After Another’ Heads To $100M WW – Box Office appeared first on Deadline.
