The only thing scarier than The Exorcist is...Taylor Swift? On August 31, the singer announced that she would be heading to theaters with the record-breaking Eras Tour, and a new concert film to match her famous lucky numbers will be released in North American theaters on October 13. The whole world was surprised. As a result, Universal Pictures moved up the release of its upcoming horror film The Exorcist: The Believer by a week and ditched the horror premiere date to avoid competing with Swift.
Director Jason Blum confirmed the schedule change on Twitter, using Swift's pun of course. Look what you made me do," he wrote, referring to her 2017 Reputation single, before confirming that The Exorcist: The Believer will be released in theaters on October 6. His punchline was using tagged #TaylorWins.
Initially, movie buffs were expecting another diametrically opposed double feature in theaters this year, aka The Next Babenheimer , set in Greta Gerwig's pink-and-plastic Barbie hour. Christopher Nolan's atomic bomb movie "Oppenheimer" was both released on July 21, bringing completely different viewing experiences. Barbie won at the box office, but Oppenheimer still benefited from Bappenheimer's hype, becoming the highest-grossing film that didn't top the box office.
So if the premiere date stays the same, Swift and The Exorcist may team up for "The Exorcist." Instead, fans took to Twitter to joke about how Swift was powerful enough to scare away the demons in The Exorcist movie .
However, many on Twitter were upset about the change, arguing that Universal should embrace Swift's fandom and let The Exorcist 's premiere date go ahead as scheduled. Fans of Swift and horror movies alike are mourning a possible "Exorcist" (although that could still happen if they just wait a week to see the new "Exorcist" movie).
If Universal really wants to dominate the box office for at least one weekend, they've made the right decision. After Swift released the Eras Tour concert footage, AMC experienced delays and virtual lines for purchasing tickets (though not as long as Ticketmaster's). By the end of the day, the film had grossed more than $26 million in AMC presales (twice her lucky number), breaking the single-day box office record previously held by "Spider-Man: No Way Home." Just for AMC theaters, the overall pre-sale figures are definitely higher.
Movie ticketing website Fandango also revealed that "Swift" broke the record for the highest first-day box office in 2023, saying its pre-sales total ranked among blockbusters such as "Avengers: Endgame" and "Star Wars: The Force Awakens" column, but no specific sales figures were given. Yes, that means Swift is probably more powerful than Marvel.
