How Much Disney Paid Taylor Swift For The Eras Tour Movie Rights (Report)
On December 13, 2023 — Taylor Swift's 34th birthday — the pop superstar's concert film, "Taylor Swift: The Eras Tour," became available to rent on major streaming platforms. Now, it's set to stream exclusively on Disney+, costing the House of Mouse a pretty penny.
As Puck's Matthew Belloni wrote in his newsletter "What I'm Hearing," "Disney film and TV heads Alan Bergman and Dana Walden were locked in a bidding war with Netflix and Universal for streaming rights to 'Taylor Swift: The Eras Tour' until [Disney CEO Bob] Iger decided to take the film off the table, paying the Swift family more than $75 million to stream it on Disney+." Belloni also claims that Swift's younger brother Austin, who works as an actor and a producer, was heavily involved in the bartering behind the scenes.
It isn't surprising that Iger, in his infinite corporate wisdom, decided to go ahead and pull the trigger on paying a handsome sum for Swift's concert movie. After its theatrical release in October 2023, "The Eras Tour" became the highest-grossing concert film in cinematic history. Still, it's impressive that the "Fearless" singer can spark a bidding war between multiple streamers and studios that only ends when one executive makes an offer as generous as Iger's.
Taylor Swift's Eras Tour movie unconventional release paid off
Nothing about Taylor Swift's career has been what one could call "conventional." The rare country star able to seamlessly cross into new genres, she constantly smashes records, including many of her own. This was true for her Eras Tour, which broke Ticketmaster — and resulted in a Senate hearing about the online seller's potentially illegal monopoly — before it even kicked off in March 2023, and its concert movie's path to the big screen was similarly atypical.
Something even Swift, a self-professed "mastermind," couldn't have foreseen is that the October 13 premiere of "Taylor Swift: The Eras Tour" would happen during the dual WGA and SAG-AFTRA strikes, which shifted several Hollywood release dates until the studios and guilds reached a deal (creating a demand for new films in theaters). As Matthew Belloni reported before the film's release, Swift and her father, Scott, worked without any major studios, staying loyal to the guilds and their cause while also taking home a substantial cut of the profits (the Swift camp received 53% compared to AMC's 47%). As of early 2024, the film's worldwide gross is just over $261 million.
The home release of Taylor Swift: The Eras Tour is a new version
"Taylor Swift: The Eras Tour" was always going to be a hot commodity when it came to streaming, but some new additions from select Eras Tours shows in Los Angeles make the Disney+ debut even bigger. In the theatrical release, Swift and her director Sam Wrench cut some less dynamic numbers from the film — "The Archer" from "Lover," "Long Live" from "Speak Now," "cardigan" from "folklore," and "Wildest Dreams" from "1989." — and when the movie became available to rent, everything but "cardigan" played between the film itself and the end credits.
On Instagram, Swift revealed that Disney+ subscribers can watch "Taylor Swift: The Eras Tour (Taylor's Version)," an expanded edition including more tunes. This means "cardigan" is back in the mix, plus four additional songs from what she calls the "acoustic section" and what fans have nicknamed the "surprise songs" (Swift chooses two songs from her expansive catalog not found on the tour setlist and performs one on guitar and the other on piano).
Swift, a master of Easter eggs and hidden clues, never passes up an opportunity to surprise and reward her fans — but these new additions certainly made "Taylor Swift: The Eras Tour" even more valuable. Thanks to Bob Iger's offer, the concert film will stream on Disney+ starting on March 15.