Taylor Swift will be returning to the big screen in October. She’ll be seen in thousands of theaters not with a traditional feature film, but with an 89-minute “release party” event, “Taylor Swift: The Official Release Party of a Showgirl,” starting on Oct. 3, the same day that her new album, “The Life of a Showgirl,” comes out.
The “party” — a sort of mass version of one of Swift’s vaunted “secret sessions” album events — will run in cinemas on Friday through Sunday of Swift’s album release weekend. Locations will include all 540 AMC Theatres locations, in keeping with the superstar’s ongoing deal with AMC Theatres Distribution to handle her big-screen product. It will also roll out in thousands of non-AMC locations in North America as well, including Cinemark and Regal theaters. Screenings will begin simultaneously across time zones at 3 p.m. ET/noon PT on Oct. 3.
The first and foremost attraction for many Swifties will undoubtedly be the premiere of the first music video from the new album, for the song “The Fate of Ophelia.” Other elements in the program’s promised 89-minute running time will include footage shot behind the scenes at the “Ophelia” video shoot, lyric videos for other songs on the album, and Swift’s “never-before-seen personal reflections” about those new songs.
The film will be specially priced in theaters during its Oct. 3-5 run, at $12, before any added online booking fees. (Although 13 has long been notable as Swift’s self-proclaimed lucky number, “12” has taken on larger meaning in her “Life of a Showgirl” era: it’s the singer’s 12th album, and it contains 12 songs.)
Tickets go on sale today at (when else) 12:12 p.m. ET. AMC sales will take place at amctheatres.com, and tickets for the thousands of other locations that will host screenings can be found at releasepartyofashowgirl.com.
Apart from the pricing, these showings will differ from the normal theatrical experience in another key regard. Says a release from AMC: “While normally prohibited during traditional showtimes, AMC guests are welcome to sing and dance during ‘Taylor Swift | The Official Release Party of a Showgirl’.” But, the announcement adds, in the interest of mayhem avoidance, “To help ensure everyone’s enjoyment of the show, guests may not stand on seats or block any aisles or stairs.”
(The other departure from traditional cinema showings: no trailers or ads, so arriving 25 minutes or even one minute past showtime is not advised.)
As for the international rollout, the program will be seen in more than a hundred countries outside the U.S., albeit not all simultaneously. Quite a few territories will get the “release party” concurrent with its Oct. 3-5 U.S. release, including Canada, Mexico, the U.K., France, Ireland, Germany, Switzerland, Austria, Belgium, the Netherlands, Luxembourg, Sweden, Norway, Finland, Denmark, South Africa, Australia and New Zealand. Tickets for showtimes in those countries will go on sale this coming Tuesday.
Other countries not included on that list will get the film on a later weekend in October, to be announced on or around Oct. 3.
When she shared the news on her social accounts, Swift wrote that the program will include “cut by cut explanations of what inspired this music.” As for the less talky portions of the party: “Dancing is optional but very much encouraged,” she said. And with hitmeisters Max Martin and Shellback returning as her co-producers after a long period of working apart, the promise of instant danceability does loom large for the “Showgirl” album.
Rumors had swirled in recent weeks of a Swift project about to hit theaters, although the nature of the film was kept well under wraps. Many had speculated, wrongly, that it would be the release of a much-rumored “Eras Tour” documentary, but it was clear to many fans that Swift would be unlikely to issue a backward-looking film at the same time she was putting out a brand new album.
Movie theater operators have already had good reason to love Swift. Her previous film, the 2023 release “Taylor Swift: The Eras Tour,” is by far the highest-grossing concert film in history. It grossed $181 million at the domestic box office, despite not playing seven days a week, after having an opening weekend of $92.8 million, which stands as the second-best October opening of all time. Its worldwide gross was $262 million. The movie was distributed by AMC Theatres Distribution, which made it available to other chains and independent theaters along with those in the AMC chain. The “Eras Tour” movie went to Disney+ for streaming after its smash theatrical run.
“Taylor Swift: The Official Release Party of a Showgirl” will barely be on screens for a fraction of the time the “Eras Tour” movie was, so it won’t be rivaling those kinds of grosses, but it will still come as manna to theater operators looking for some major fall relief. Its competition on theater screens that weekend includes the opening of the Dwayne Johnson movie “The Smashing Machine” and an “Avatar: The Way of Water” re-release.
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