Having already stricken fear into the hearts of the competition by announcing the release date for her Eras Tour concert movie – thusly clearing the playing field to tear the box office a new one – Taylor Swift has now been declared exempt from the ongoing strikes, giving her the ability to hit the promotional trail and feasibly drive the opening weekend numbers to even more incredulous heights.
To give you an indication of just how massive the film is going to be, even if it comes in at the lowest possible ends of the earliest projections, it’ll still become the highest-grossing theatrically-released concert experience in the history of cinema within the space of 72 hours.
And yet, there’s growing belief that the Eras Tour event will ring up as much as $150 million across its first three days in multiplexes, which is insane. On one hand, the ongoing actions to have ground the industry to a standstill theoretically prevented Swift from engaging in any sort of marketing or promotion, whether it be in-person, virtual, or viral.
However, SAG-AFTRA’s National Executive Director and Chief Negotiator Duncan Crabtree-Ireland revealed at the Toronto International Film Festival that the singer and star of many terrible box office catastrophes has secured an interim agreement.
“Taylor and her team came to us. … The only way she could do it is the right way. We’re excited for everyone to go see it.”
That doesn’t necessarily mean she’ll be hitting the press circuit with a vengeance, but it does ensure there’s going to be some form of external hype. Not that she needed it, but then again, raising even more awareness could launch the Eras Tour to truly preposterous heights at the box office next month.