“Taylor Swift: The Eras Tour” was the top film at the box office last month, and its impact is even stretching into… other theaters.
A Wall Street Journal report this week revealed that moviegoers watching other films have had a hard time focusing as 17 years of Swift’s songs bleed through the theater walls.
“I think everyone there watching ‘The Exorcist’ grew closer, laughing at, like, ‘Why can we hear Taylor Swift right now?’” said Rob Laltrello, a 21-year-old video editor who went to see the horror film in Marietta, Ga. Per the WSJ, he “became preoccupied” by “All Too Well (10-Minute Version)” at one point.
As Connor Petrey, editor in chief of movie and television review site Cinefied watched Martin Scorsese’s “Killers of the Flower Moon” in Ohio, he could hear Swift’s “Look What You Made Me Do” during an emotional scene about the deaths of Osage people.
Initially, box office analysts assumed the film – which opened Oct. 12 and includes footage from Swift’s record-breaking Eras concert tour – would leave theaters Nov. 5, according to CNBC. However, AMC clarified Friday that Nov 5 was just “the cutoff for the first run of tickets available for the film when presales began.”
As of Saturday, the film had grossed more than $209 million worldwide with $156 million in domestic sales, according to Box Office Mojo.
“What a truly mind blowing thing you’ve turned The Eras Tour Concert Film into,” said Swift in an Oct. 18 X post. “I’ve been watching videos of you guys in the theaters dancing and prancing and recreating choreography, creating inside jokes, casting spells, getting engaged, and just generally creating the exact type of joyful chaos we’re known for.”
CNBC said that the film is expected to pull in another $10 million domestically this weekend and could pull to the top of the box office again to unseat the “Five Nights at Freddy’s” film based on a popular video game. Though the film was already the highest domestic and global concert film of all time as of this weekend, its global haul alone trails behind the $262.5 million global gross of Michael Jackson’s “This Is It”.
“Taylor Swift: The Eras Tour” is only in theaters for now, and CNBC said that “it appears that Swift is waiting for the SAG-AFTRA strike to wrap up before negotiating with streamers,” for rights to it.