Taylor Swift and Beyoncé became AMC's saviors last year, helping the international theater chain continue to recover from the fallout of the COVID-19 pandemic, driving “literally everything” in its quarterly revenue growth.
While one moved on from country music and the other moved on to country, the industry's disruptive superstars have dominated Hollywood by recently setting their business sights on the film industry.
How is that? Her concert films, “Taylor Swift: The Eras Tour” and “Renaissance: A Film by Beyoncé,” bolstered AMC's profits in the fourth quarter of 2023, in part by rewriting distribution protocol by bypassing studios and releasing the films directly through cinema.
“Despite a decline in overall box office, in the fourth quarter compared to the same quarter a year ago, AMC's revenue grew 11.5% and AMC's adjusted EBITDA [earnings before interest, taxes, depreciation and amortization] it almost tripled,” the company's CEO Adam Aron said during AMC Entertainment's quarterly earnings conference call on Wednesday. “Literally, all of that increase in AMC's revenue and EBITDA is attributable to us showing these two films in our theaters in the U.S. and internationally.”
AMC, one of the country's largest movie theater chains, said the films “contributed greatly” to industry-wide movie ticket sales and “accounted for one-ninth of the entire domestic industry-wide fourth-quarter box office.” “.
For the record:
2:30 pm February 29, 2024The collective opening weekend grosses for the two concert films were nearly $115 million. The previous figure of $130 million was incorrect.
In fact, “Eras” and “Renaissance” broke box office records in their opening weekends, collectively earning more than $115 million domestically, according to Box Office Mojo.
“This is a surprising result given that none of these films were on anyone's drawing board until mid-year, and that they were the first films distributed by AMC in our 103-year history,” Aron said, thanking the creators of Grammy-winning hits.
Aron also said the revenue added to “another full year of significant and continued recovery following the 2020 pandemic,” which resulted in the closure of many theaters and billions of dollars in losses.
However, shares of AMC Entertainment Holdings Inc. fell 12.3% on Thursday despite the network's fourth-quarter results released Wednesday evening, MarketWatch reported.
But the profits were still a victory for the theater giant and the artists who revolutionized the industry. AMC's “new line of business” shared 43% of the profits with Swift, who received the remaining 57%. Both she and Beyoncé produced and distributed her concert films by dealing directly with AMC and eliminating the costly middleman of a traditional Hollywood studio. (Their similar business decisions also led to beautiful photographs of the two artists at their respective film premieres and touching displays of support.)
Swift, 34, filmed “Eras” in August at SoFi Stadium during the Inglewood stop of her world tour. She released the film in October and it grossed $96 million in its first four days at the domestic box office and crushed the competition in an otherwise slow weekend. The successful opening was the highest ever for a concert film, more than tripling the $31 million earned by Miley Cyrus' “Best of Both Worlds” debut in 2008. The film “Eras,” which begins streaming on Disney+ on March 15, it finally earned $180 million at the domestic box office and $80.9 million internationally during its theatrical run.
“Renaissance,” which also captures segments of Bey’s performances from last year, including her three-night performance at SoFi Stadium, took the box office crown in early December, grossing $21 million domestically. It opened with the fifth-best domestic debut weekend for a concert film. It has earned $33.8 million domestically and nearly $44 million worldwide in its 12-week run.
According to Variety, Beyoncé took home about 50% of the box office profits, exhibitors took the rest of the proceeds, and AMC took a small distribution fee.
Last week, Live Nation Entertainment revealed that concert attendance is up 20% in 2023, the year both artists launched the blockbuster tours on which their concert films were based and popularized the budget buzzword “ fun inflation.” The jump helped the Beverly Hills-based ticket seller and concert promoter increase its revenue by 36% in 2023 to $22.7 billion and increase its operating income by 46% to $1.07 billion.
Live Nation also noted that ticket sales were up 30%, with more than 620 million tickets sold by Ticketmaster, generating nearly $36 billion. In 2023 alone, more than 145 million people attended more than 50,000 live events, the company reported.
However, against the backdrop of the company's success, the Senate Judiciary Committee held a hearing on Ticketmaster, Live Nation and the US ticketing market in 2023, after the colossal demand for Swift's Eras tour caused a collapse of Ticketmaster, prompting a class-action lawsuit filed by disgruntled Swifties against the ticket giant.
The hearing examined alleged anti-competitive practices by Live Nation and Ticketmaster, which control approximately 80% of the ticket sales market. The Justice Department also launched an investigation into the practices of ticket sellers.
Times staff writers Christi Carras, Carlos DeLoera and Josh Rottenberg contributed to this report.
