Greg Marcus has been in the movie business for years but he never expected to be urging moviegoers to take out their phones during a film - let alone to be crafting friendship bracelets in preparation for an opening weekend.
Subscribe now for unlimited access.
or signup to continue reading
But there the chief executive and chair of the Marcus Corporation is in a promotion for his cinema chain, stringing beads together while humming Shake It Off.
Cinemas are readying for an onslaught like they've never seen before, beginning on Friday when Taylor Swift: The Eras Tour debuts. The concert film, compiled from several Swift shows at southern California's SoFi Stadium, is expected to launch with $US100 million ($A156 million), or possibly more. Advance ticket sales worldwide have already surpassed $US100 million.
Swifties will descend. Dancing will be encouraged.
"This is different," says Marcus. "Take your phone out. Take selfies. Dance, sing, get up, have a good time. We want to create an atmosphere."
Concert films, of course, aren't anything new. Just last month, the Talking Heads classic Stop Making Sense returned to cinemas for a decades-later encore. But The Eras Tour heralds something new and potentially game-changing in the movie industry.
Two of the biggest stars on the planet - Swift and, in December under a very similar arrangement, Beyonce - are heading into cinemas in first-of-their-kind deals made directly with AMC Theatres that circumvent Hollywood studios and which, for now, leave streamers waiting on the sidelines.
But how did the once declared-for-dead multiplex become the go-to place of a pair of stars previously at home on Netflix?
When studios began diverting some of their titles to streaming platforms, cinemas began thinking harder about how they could fill their screens - a question exacerbated by an actors strike.
Cinemas are increasingly not just a marquee of movie showtimes but a big-screen stage for a variety of visual media.
Few acts can do what Swift and Beyonce can. Their expected success is unlikely to be replicated. But The Eras Tour could be the start of an expansion of what, exactly, a cinema can be. Think the Sphere, only much cheaper and in most towns.
Swift's camp was motivated to get the film out even as her stadium tour continues internationally. The tour, which is projected by Pollstar to gross some $US1.4 billion, crashed Ticketmaster's site, saw sky-high resale mark-ups and left many fans priced out.
The movie, directed by Sam Wrench, would be a way for millions more to experience the Eras Tour. Adult tickets are being sold for $US19.89," a reference to her birth year and 2014 album, a re-recording of which is due out October 27.
Ticket sales will be split 43 per cent with cinemas and 57 per cent shared by Swift and AMC - with the lion's share of that going to Swift. The film will play exclusively in cinemas for at least 13 weeks - longer than many Hollywood releases. AMC CEO Adam Aron has called the deal "a coup for AMC" on social media.
After a premiere in Los Angeles on Wednesday, there won't be any advance screenings until the movie begins playing on Friday. Most wide-release movies open with Thursday showings and Friday daytime screenings. It's another wrinkle in a non-traditional release that's challenging Hollywood norms.
"Innovation comes out of challenging times in this business. We're seeing a lot of changes, some subtle, some not so subtle," says Paul Dergarabedian, senior media analyst for data firm Comscore. "It seems like, right now, there are no rules when it comes to being successful."
Some of those changes have been facilitated by the abolishment of long-held antitrust restrictions governing movie distribution. After more than 70 years of regulating divisions between exhibition and distribution, the Paramount consent decrees were terminated in 2020 at the urging of the Department of Justice, with a two-year sunset period that ran until last year.
"Innovation had effectively been stunted," says Makan Delrahim, the former antitrust chief at the Justice Department who proposed ending the consent decrees.
Delrahim believes Taylor Swift: The Eras Tour - as a movie distributed by a cinema chain, with non-traditional ticket prices - could "fuel new business models to save the exhibitors."
Australian Associated Press
