Today, I want to discuss Taylor Swift’s film distribution plan and how she challenged the film industry.
Taylor Swift is at the top of her creative career; she is in the middle of her Eras Tour that ends in 2025 and decided to produce and release a film where she showed her concert.
Taylor Swift: The Eras Tour was released on October 13th, and AMC theaters distributed it.
Most film producers and filmmakers think there is only one way to release their films, and this is the traditional way of doing it; what we learn from Taylor’s movie release is that you can do whatever you want, but you need to stand by it.
What did Taylor do differently from the rest of the film industry?
- She owns her own production company, Taylor Swift Productions Inc., which was in charge of filming her concert and putting everything together to release it in films.
- She bypassed all the intermediaries in the film chain and went directly to the exhibitors.
The usual approach is to produce, post-produce, send the film to film festivals, find a film agent or distributor, and reach exhibitors.
If you don’t know what an exhibitor is, check out the blog post where I wrote about this, in which I explain how film distribution works.
However, Taylor jumped the whole chain of people in the film industry and went directly to the chain cinema, and this gave her more money in return than working with a sales agent or a film distributor.
The box office has, until now, been worth USD 234.4 million.
If Taylor’s team negotiated a 50% ticket sale cut, roughly USD 117,2 million would be for her and her team.
Do you want me to break down another film you like? Let me know in the comments.
