Beyoncé Renaissance World Tour film will reportedly hit cinema’s on December 1st ahead of the launch of Taylor Swift: The Eras Tour film on October 11th.
AMC is counting on concert films to help ease the burden at the flagging box office and it points to an under-tapped potential revenue stream.
Beyoncé and Swift will likely pull in several hundreds of millions worldwide with their films. AMC clearly sees the advantages and is trying to make something happen here.
Cinema can now offer concerts on the big screen for more reasonable prices than unattainable gigs or even too much for poor entertainment.
Concert films are reliable when stars and music are big enough, and the film gets a wide release and good promotion.
For example, Justin Bieber: Never Say Never grossed $73m in 2011, and One Direction: This Is Us pulled in $68m in 2013.
The Michael Jackson film This Is It including concert footage and interviews as well as other things holds the crown at a massive $261 million.
However there’s a deeper and more significant level at which the Beyoncé and Taylor Swift concert films matter.
Beyoncé and Swift are high-profile activists on social and political issues that matter and which move them to encourage their fans to pay attention to what’s happening to women’s rights, to get active, and to vote.
They’re both powerful forces in music and culturally. They are capable of filling cinema with admirers who are motivated to see these women exert dominance in pop culture.
