Weekend projections: Taylor Swift brings much-needed buzz to theaters

Is Taylor Swift the biggest movie star on the planet? It’s a question worth pondering this morning, as The Official Release Party of a Showgirl packs theaters to the tune of $33 million domestically and $46 million worldwide. Last weekend, Leonardo DiCaprio’s leading role in One Battle After Another mustered a modest $22 million, and only F1: The Movie is arguably a star-led movie that tops Taylor’s debut this year. But were people paying $57 million to see Brad Pitt, or was it the cars?

Here are the official studio projections for the three-day weekend (click the image for a full chart of all films reporting so far):

Release Party of a Showgirl was never going to hit the heights of Swift’s Eras Tour concert movie, which pulled in an amazing $93 million in October 2023. This event is a different beast, combining aspects of both documentary and performance. We classify it as a documentary, and by that standard it’s doing spectacular business. Becoming Led Zeppelin is the second-highest-grossing documentary of 2025, with just over $10 million earned over the course of a 15-week run, including $2.6 million on its opening weekend. The last documentary to earn this kind of money was Michael Jackson’s This Is It, released posthumously in 2009. That earned $23.2 million on opening weekend, which is equivalent to about $35 million when adjusted for ticket price inflation, and ended its run with $72.1 million. Showgirl will only be in theaters for three days, so won’t hit that kind of number in total. $33 million is a real shot in the arm for theaters though.

The rest of the top 10 looks weak. The Smashing Machine is a particular disappointment, with just $6 million expected over its opening three days. That’s less than half what our model expected based on the pedigree of the film and buzz leading up to its release—although it is in line with the $8.3 million the model gave us without factoring in the buzz. This looks like a lesson in separating industry expectations from the reality that this isn’t the kind of movie audiences come to in droves these days. The Iron Claw debuted with $4.9 million in December last year, and the performance of Smashing Machine looks better based on that comparison. However, it’ll need incredible word of mouth and spectacular legs to be more than a footnote at this point.

Speaking of movies that need incredible word of mouth and spectacular legs, One Battle After Another is clearly not delivering in that regard this weekend, with a 49% drop to $11.1 million, and a total of $42.8 million so far. It lost prime screens to Taylor Swift this weekend, and will get them back tomorrow, so it should bounce back a little, but our model is predicting a final box office of $67.4 million for the film now, which is a major disappointment.

Overall, even with the help of the biggest star on the planet, we’re looking at a weekend that’s down 11% from last year. That’s a major disappointment as we go into the final part of the year. The final outcome for the market in 2025 has always depended on the performance of the big movies coming out around the Holidays, but a relatively slow weekend like this one only adds to the pressure.

– Studio weekend projections

– All-time top-grossing movies in North America

– All-time top-grossing movies worldwide

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Bruce Nash, bruce.nash@the-numbers.com