That James Cameron directed Billie Eilish concert film Hit Me Hard and Soft that the 9x Grammy winner announced back in July — well, it’s going to be released by Paramount and it’s set for a March 20, 2026 release date.
Interestingly enough, Deadline told you Friday that the Matt Stone-Trey Parker-Kendrick Lamar movie, which was originally set for March 20, 2026 was being pushed to a TBD date so those guys could finish their film. Paramount quickly backfilled the vacancy.
The 2x Oscar winning Eilish just announced the news on her social media handle. In addition, she also unveiled the news to the crowd at the final stop of her Hit Me Hard and Soft tour in San Francisco, CA tonight. Cameron also took to his social to announce the movie’s release.
Eilish told the crowd at her Manchester, UK concert stop for the Hit Me Hard and Soft tour back in July that the 3x Oscar winning Cameron had cameras in the arena, and that a new 3D concert film was underway.
Eilish has had concert films hit the big screen before, i.e. her Live at the O2 back in 2023, however, that was a limited release via Trafalgar Releasing grossing only $1.29M at the domestic box office. Having the full major studio push from Paramount is a different story. The Melrose lot was reportedly one of several studios kicking the tires at Taylor Swift: Eras Tour before the Swift family decided to distribute directly with AMC Theatres; that movie making $180.7M domestic, $261.6M worldwide (NY based distributor Variance booked North American cinemas on behalf of AMC).
It’s been a while since Paramount released a concert film in theaters. One of the more notable ones in the millennium was the 2011 Justin Bieber: Never Say Never 3D concert movie which racked up $73M at the domestic box office (after a $29.5M opening) and close to $100M worldwide.
Paramount announced earlier this month that they’re upping their feature count to at least 15 films next year.
Cameron has Avatar: Fire and Ash coming out on Dec. 19. Talk about an opportune time to trailer his Eilish concert movie before millions.
Hit Me Hard and Soft is Eilish’s third studio album. At the 67th Annual Grammy Awards earlier this year, the album and its songs received a total of seven nominations, including Album of the Year, Best Pop Vocal Album, Song of the Year and Record of the Year. At the 68th Grammy Awards on Feb. 1, 2026, the single “Wildflower” from the album was nominated for Record of the Year and Song of the Year.