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EXCLUSIVE: So AMC’s second concert movie, Renaissance: A Film by Beyoncé, hit tracking recently with a $20M opening projection. You’ll remember that the No. 1 circuit in the world, which is distributing the movie to other exhibitors through Variance (which also was tapped to handle AMC’s concert movie Taylor Swift: The Eras Tour) set a Dec. 1 release date. That’s a notoriously slow post-Thanksgiving frame for moviegoing.
Renaissance, which has more of documentary quality to it than Eras Tour, always was expected to debut in this range, so no surprise here. When the movie was announced, despite Beyoncé’s latest concert tour grossing close to $600M, per Live Nation back in August — the seventh-highest-grossing concert of all time, with wild estimates out there that the tour could rack up $2.4 billion — distribution sources have been figuring that the film would not post Eras Tour-type opening numbers. The Swift pic saw a $92.8M domestic opening and $123M global debut and has a current running total over $241M worldwide.
That was evident in the first-day presales, with Beyoncé doing around $6M-$7M back in October to Swift’s $37M (building to $65M before opening day). Swift caught lightning in a bottle: She released the movie at the end of the U.S. leg of her comeback tour before heading overseas, and the live event was a challenge to nab tickets to. Many in distribution circles wonder if another concert movie feat such as Eras Tour on the big screen could ever be accomplished again. Perhaps with Harry Styles…
The biggest opening for a movie in early December belongs to the Warner Bros.’ 2003 Tom Cruise pic The Last Samurai, at $24.2M, while Disney’s third weekend of Frozen 2 in early December 2019 counts the most amount of money for a film at No. 1 with $35.1M.
Hands down, older women are the prime demo for Renaissance, followed by younger women. Black demos for the movie show popularity among older males and females. Tickets began selling at $22.
Renaissance is directed by Beyoncé, James B. Merryman and Mark Ritchie. Renaissance captures the all-time Grammy champ’s opening show of her tour in Stockholm, Sweden, to its grand finale tonight in Kansas City, MO. CAA held a beauty contest for Renaissance with AMC boxing out traditional studios.
In an earnings call last week, AMC chain boss Adam Aron announced that the exhibitor was reaping a handsome profit from Eras Tour but declined to give any numbers until year end since both Swift and Renaissance: A Film By Beyoncé fall in Q4. He assured Wall Streeters on a conference call after strong quarterly earnings that the company will definitely be leaning into concert films for next year, in 2025 and beyond. “The phone has been ringing off the hook since we announced” the Eras Tour release, he said. “A significant number of the world’s best artists would like to explore doing things with AMC.”
