This Is a Post About Taylor Swift. We Expect a Lot of Hits.

Not to be Delicate, AMC Theaters has had a Cruel Summer. But, back to work in the fall, it is hoping to Shake It Off — at least somewhat — with its showing of Taylor Swift: The Official Release Party of a Showgirl.

AMC does not have exclusive rights to the 89-minute celebration of the making of Swift’s The Life of a Showgirl. The recording drops on October 3, the first of three nights of the exhibition of the commercial movie and anyone can pay to show it. However, given that AMC is the largest theater chain in the U.S. and the world (it has some 900 theaters encompassing 10,000 screens), it is going to gain the most from the theatrical showing of the film.

If you have any question about the global popularity of Swift, it is worth noting that the film will not only be shown in the U.S. but in Canada, Mexico, the United Kingdom, Ireland, France, Germany, Switzerland, Austria, Belgium, the Netherlands, Luxembourg, Sweden, Norway, Denmark, Finland, South Africa, Australia, and New Zealand.

Lucky for AMC it has a large footprint.

AMC started the year with attendance, revenue and even concession sales each down by approximately 10%. Adam Aron, chairman and CEO of AMC, went so far as to describe Q1 2025 as a “distorting anomaly,” not the sort of encouraging words investors want to hear.

But in Q2 2025, the company showed remarkable resilience. Aron noted, “For the first time ever, consolidated admissions revenue per patron topped $12, coming in at $12.14. Consolidated food and beverage revenue per guest jumped to a record of $7.95. Total consolidated revenue per patron hit an unprecedented $22.26 for us.”

Aron added, “Our premium auditoriums are operating at close to three times the occupancy of a regular auditorium and command a healthy price premium to boot. Clearly, movie-going guests prefer to see their favorite films in the most immersive, most spectacular formats possible.” Presumably that last line is a not-so-subtle dig at streaming in the privacy of one’s home. Sure, home theater systems are getting bigger and bigger, but Aron pointed out, “We are the worldwide leader in offering the most IMAX and Dolby Cinema screens, and we’re continuing to roll out more IMAX, Dolby Cinema, Prime, iSense, XL and Laser equipped screens.”

Still, they probably weren’t passing out Twizzlers to everyone at AMC HQ when the books were closed on Q2 because the net loss in the first half of 2025 was still $206.8 million, compared to the net loss of $196.3 million in the first half of 2024. (If you had a personal net loss increase of 10.5% in a year’s period, you’d probably be wondering about how many streaming services you could cancel, to say nothing of the movies you would choose to miss at the theaters.)

Which brings us back to Swift.

Last October 13 Team Taylor released The Eras Tour concert film. AMC had presales of $37 million. Although the movie ran for weeks, not days, according to Box Office Mojo its domestic gross was $180,756,269. Certainly helpful to AMC’s bottom line (in addition to showing the movie, it was the exclusive distributor, so it made money logistically, as well. While it doesn’t have “exclusive” distribution for TS: TORPS, it is the “primary” distributor, so it is making some money even working with other companies.)

As you may recall, earlier this year when A Minecraft Movie was in wide release there was exuberant behavior exhibited by members of the audience. This led some theater operators to clamp down on the jumping and food-throwing and the like. “Sit down and watch!”

But AMC wants to encourage the enjoyment of the Swifties, who will undoubtedly swoon during the world premier of the music video “The Fate of Ophelia,” which is part of TS: TORPS.

On the chain’s website (does anyone who isn’t writing about AMC ever visit the AMC website?) there are FAQs, including this:

Q: Will I be able to sing and dance during Taylor Swift: The Official Release Party of a Showgirl?

A: Singing and dancing are encouraged for Taylor Swift: The Official Release Party of a Showgirl. Please do not stand on seats or block any aisles or stairs.

(This could be the moment for another obligatory “Shake It Off reference,” which I’ll forego.)

AMC wants the audience to be as engaged as possible, presumably hoping that they’ll feel good about coming back to the theater to see other movies opening on October 3, such as Bone Lake and The Smashing Machine, neither of which will involve much in the way of singing and dancing.

TS: TORPS will not reach the heights of The Eras Tour, which was the highest-grossing concert film of all time: $261.6 million. Second place is almost in a different financial category, Justin Bieber: Never Say Never (2011), which grossed $99 million. (Perhaps some Bond fanatics missed the bit to the left of the colon and thought it was a release of the 007 movie of the same name that appeared in 1983: Bond outperformed Bieber, grossing $160 million.)

Companies like AMC need special events like TS: TORPS, something that a pre-existing fan base needs no marketing to bring into theaters. Realize that even though AMC is the largest theater chain on the planet, its market cap, some $1.6 billion, is a fraction of that of Netflix, some $521 billion. To put that into context: Beyond Meat has a market cap like that of AMC; ExxonMobil’s market cap is less than Netflix’s.

One of the things movie theaters are doing to gin up their take is to run extensive ads and trailers before the actual feature. AMC’s pre-show runs some 25 to 30 minutes. (No wonder the Q2 numbers for concessions were so good: that popcorn and Coke are gone before the movie starts.)

So perhaps recognizing this (or, more likely, following the rules of Team Swift, which doesn’t want its fans to feel exploited), AMC has this on its site:

Please note that trailers will not be shown. The event begins promptly at showtime, so be sure to arrive on time.

They wouldn’t dare have an audience that might miss a third of the show. That would be an unrecoverable loss, which it can ill afford.