Taylor Swift’s Mini-Movie The Life of a Showgirl Experiment Paid Off

You think a billion dollars is cool? To offer a Taylor Swift-specific paraphrase of The Social Network, you know what’s cool? Two billion dollars.

Hot on the heels of her latest album release, The Life of a Showgirl, already a success on the charts, Bloomberg updated their estimate of Swift’s wealth and announced that, since they added her to their running billionaire list in 2024, she’s now worth an estimated $2.1 billion—and that’s before any profits from her three-day theatrical event, The Official Release Party of a Showgirl.

And, seeing as that release—not a movie, but a mish-mash of the music video for “The Fate of Ophelia” and behind-the-scenes footage from that, lyric videos, and straight-to-camera footage of Swift explaining her inspiration behind the songs—topped the weekend’s box office, raking in $33 million in domestic ticket sales. It came in above One Battle After Another, Paul Thomas Anderson’s latest film starring Leonardo DiCaprio, and dwarfed fellow debut The Smashing Machine, which took the third slot with $6 million.

So, while Swift’s acquisition of her masters, thus upping her profit on the use of her music, expands her net worth, the proceeds from having both the number one album and the number one movie (at the same time, may we add, something even Prince didn’t accomplish with his own Purple Rain one-two punch) certainly aren’t going to hurt her wallet either.

This isn’t the first time Swift has extended the fan experience to the cinema: In 2023, Swift brought a filmed version of her stage show, perhaps you’ve heard of it, a little something called Taylor Swift: The Eras Tour, to AMC Theaters for an initial 13-week run. It went well, to say the least: The film raked in $180.7 million domestically, and $261.6 million worldwide, making it the most lucrative concert film of all time. The extremely limited release of Showgirl won’t top Eras, of course, but if there was any doubt that Swift could get butts in seats (to use the scientific term) in a variety of media, consider it thoroughly banished, opening the door for future multimedia experimentation for the artist.

A representative for Swift did not immediately respond to a request for comment.