Christopher Nolan tried to warn us about oncoming Taylor Swift
Days before the release of Taylor Swift’s The Eras Tour documentary, Christopher Nolan knew which way the wind was blowing
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Her impact in Hollywood has been Swift and merciless. Within weeks of announcing her concert documentary, Taylor Swift: The Eras Tour, would be getting an exclusive run in AMC Theatres, chaos reigned. Exorcists scuttled from release dates, friendship bracelets were made, and the movie business braced for impact. Christopher Nolan could see it coming from a mile away.
Two days before The Eras Tour made landfall, the Oppenheimer director warned studios that a shitstorm was coming their way. In conversation with producer Emma Thompson and American Prometheus author Kai Bird, Nolan warned, “Taylor Swift is about to show studios” the importance of movie theaters, despite hyper-fixation on getting their blasted streaming services off the ground.
“Taylor Swift is about to show the studios because her
concert film is not being distributed by the studios. It’s being
distributed by the theater owner, AMC, and it’s going to make an
enormous amount of money,” the director said. “And this is the thing,
this is a format, this is a way of seeing things and sharing stories, or
sharing experiences that’s incredibly valuable. And if [the studios]
don’t want it, somebody else will. So that’s just the truth of it.”
As is usually the case with these things, Christopher Nolan is right. Taylor Swift: The Eras Tour made $104 million at the worldwide box office since its release last week, beating all studio releases over the weekend, and it will probably do the same this week. The studios won’t see a dime.
One thing Nolan doesn’t discuss is the tricky question of AMC Theatres distributing its movies. The 1948 Hollywood anti-trust case, which ended the studio system, established the Paramount Decree, preventing studios from vertical integration and forbidding them from owning distribution and exhibition. As a result, for the last 70 years, studios have abandoned movie theater ownership since it created an unfair marketplace where studios would control production, distribution, and exhibition. However, a federal judge ended that ruling in 2020 because the court found such rules were no longer needed.
Now, there’s nothing to suggest that AMC will start a whole studio in a reversal of the old system. Furthermore, Eras is a specialty release, a concert film, which has a far different production than a traditional narrative film. But strangely and without consequence, the biggest movie theater chain in the country moved into distribution. When the Paramount Decree ended three years ago, most assumed it would be Disney, for example, buying up movie theaters and getting back into distribution. Eras was AMC’s first distributed movie, and it already has another on the way: Renaissance: A Film By Beyoncé.
51 Comments
Was the warning ruined by the background sounds and music being way louder than his dialog?
Never heard that one before, did you come up with it yourself?
Never seen that kind of anonymous passive aggressive bitchiness before, bravo!
You couldn’t have heard it past the music drowning out the dialog of it.
Never heard that one before, did you come up with it yourself?There’s probably an explanation for that.
No, but his talk was 30-45 minutes longer than it needed to be – could have used an editor.
somebody had to.
No but it was tough to keep up with him speaking backwards
Why, yes.Yes, it was.::screaming over the music and background noise:: GOOD OF YOU TO NOTICE!
No, Taylor Swift is showing studios the importance of Taylor Swift.
“They won’t fear it until they understand it. And they won’t understand it until they’ve screened it.” – Chris Nolan on ‘Taylor Swift: The Eras Tour’.
“Because she’s the pop star America deserves, but not the one it needs right now.”
“That’s a lovely, lovely voice.” – Bane.
Actual spit take. Thank you.
This only happened because he infiltrated Adam Aron’s dreams and told him it was a good idea.
Does Nolan think that people wouldn’t have watched this on streaming? And probably a lot more?
As much as I don’t give two pickleshits about Swift and her music, I’m still stoked that she’s making a theatrical experience that’s very popular, doubly so because it benefits cinemas and not the studios…
> Taylor Swift: The Eras Tour, would be getting an exclusive run in AMC TheatresIt’s not exclusive to AMC theaters. It’s playing everywhere (and every 15 minutes at some megaplexes). AMC is the distributor.
I was going to say—it’s at our local Alamo Drafthouse. We had to fight through all the “But you really wanna see Taylor Swift, right?” promos to purchase tickets for Exorcist: Believer.It’s—not horrible. It’s just…eh.
“marketplace where studios would control production, distribution, and exhibition”
sounds like a streaming service
It’s ironic, isn’t it?
like ray-ee-yay-eee-ain on my wedding day?
I suspect that was a major driver behind the court decision.
This is absolutely not on topic, but there’s no place it really would be:What does a fella have to do to get out of the greys? I’ve posted on this site for 25 years under the same email address (different user name for a few years), I’m not abusive, I try to contribute to conversations in a constructive way…Just curious. Thanks for any help.Oh — and I liked Oppenheimer quite a bit, too. 🙂
For some reason I have the power to pull folks out of the greys. I don’t have an answer for you but maybe a bit of visibility can help.
I appreciate it!I know this discussion board is goofy, but another thing that’s weird is that if I click on my icon, it show in my profile that I have no posts.Even under my “new” username, I should have hundreds.
Look under “Discussions”, that’s where your comments will be. “Posts” refers to the actual articles.The way to get out of the greys is to get one of the authors on the site to follow you.
Wait, that’s how you get out of the greys? I always assumed the one person following me was a bot.Also, has the link to jump from your posts in Discussions to an article disappeared for anyone else? It has for me and is really annoying me.
Yes, the links have disappeared for everyone, I think. I’m still not sure if Kinja is coming apart due to sloppy programming, or deliberate sabotage. I still remember advising another user of a workaround for another problem related to being in the grays, and that workaround disappearing less than a week later. Coincidence, or sabotage?Sometimes the best way to get out of the greys is to just directly ask one of the site authors/mods to lift you out.
Thank you for both bits of information. Have a great weekend!
Hey, could you give me a leg up out of the greys, too?I’ve been stuck here since Kinja took over, and while I might occasionally seem “abusive”, I think I’ve contributed enough to make up for that….
You’re not appearing gray now.
Really? — all it took was a little whining? 🙂
Well the other poster said he had some magic where this was concerned, so maybe it’s just this comment but it’s black for me.
Cool. Have a great weekend, all! Thanks for the help.
Same, but I’ve merely given up at this point.
Same issue. I wonder if it’s because the account isn’t attached to FB, Google, or Instagram.
An added consideration: My Regal Card told me that nope, my Unlimited Pass was not valid for the Eras movie, and the ticket price is nearly 25 bucks (for comparison, an average movie ticket in my area is $12). Obviously that’s a pittance compared to attending her live shows, and I’m all for the less fortunate Swifties getting some version of the experience. I’m a babe in the woods regarding the subject of production and distribution, but wanted to add this because I haven’t seen it addressed elsewhere.
Yeah, so TAKE THAT, all of you who thought that Taylor Swift’s concert movie wasn’t going to be a massive financial success!!!
Eras is actually underperforming expectations, and Nolan is a whiny shit bitch
I like Christopher Nolan the director, I really dislike Christopher Nolan the film snob. Kind of how I like Tom Cruise the actor but dislike Tom Cruise the person.CN always comes off as “old man yells at clouds” when it talks about anything within the industry.
Goofy article. First of all because it follows on the heels of your site’s (admittedly stupid) “actually, no one really went to see Eras, as far as I can tell from my own screening” piece. Second because Nolan isn’t even right. I mean sure, the studios would like to get a cut of $100 million more than they’d like to NOT get a cut. But it’s one weekend, for an event that required only the biggest pop star in the world to get off the ground. How many other musical acts could post even 75% of that number? Two or three, maybe? And none of them could open an event like this more than once in a great while because the novelty of it is a large factor in why it opened so well.The studios will learn little from this because there are so few viable threats to their ecosystem who can genuinely take advantage of the theater system. Their grip is therefore unthreatened.
Swift had the resources to film the concerts herself, as most major artists do. do the content was essentially already created. I agree that you’re not going to find too many filmmakers willing to take on that kind of financial risk without distribution set, even if it means more money to them if the movie is successful.
I think more artists would be willing to take the risk than you do, bfred—if for no other reason, because they already think they’re geniuses at everything!I await with growing horror Nickelback’s version of Madonna: Truth or Dare….
Yeah I’m not sure I understood this article. What is this “shitstorm”? What did the studios ultimately lose here? I feel like movie theaters as a way of sharing stories together was already established last year with Maverick? Wasn’t that the whole story surrounding that movie? That theaters were “back” and all that?
I don’t see how one follows the other at all, Chris. You gonna say that she taught everyone the importance of Ticketmaster because they made a stupid amount of money in the first week after Eras was announced?If I want to watch movies in the comfort of my own home, not drive 30+ minutes(now that the local theater shut down) and pay stupid amounts of money to see your film, I damnwell will.
I don’t think you have to be anywhere as big as Swift to replicate this. First and foremost, any creator skipping the studios has 1 major profitability advantage: no ~35% cut of proceeds going to the distributor. If you were an indie, you could strategically place your film on a few screens across the country and just go direct to the theaters. Per-screen averages from some hot indies can be immense. Even if it’s not $100-million-plus, who cares? And all the profit gets shared between just two parties (the makers and the exhibitors) instead of three. The only question is whether studios would become coercive to exhibitors that favor releases that cut them out of the process.
Christopher Nolan, genius visionary: the Taylor Swift movie is going to make a lot of money
“However, a federal judge ended that ruling in 2020 because the court found such rules were no longer needed.”A whole lot of things that were instituted to make society better last century have been deemed “no longer needed.”
And, strangely, their absence has proven just how much they were, and still are, desperately needed!Thanks, Bush!
Thanks, Mitch McConnell!
Thanks, Hillary for giving us “President” Donald Trump!
Warned? Sounds more like celebrating. This site sounds like the IDF official Twitter sometimes.