The Last Time a Concert Documentary Saved the Movies

After the box-office triumph of Barbenheimer this past summer, Hollywood stumbled into an uneasy fall season. The dual writer and actor strikes contributed to delayed releases, which blunted the predicted slow-walk back to theaters in the wake of COVID restrictions. Yet the second half of 2023 also yielded welcome surprises, the most unexpected of which was the success of the concert documentary.

Both Taylor Swift and Beyoncé made surprise announcements that their record-breaking tours were hitting the big screen. opened in theaters in October and domestically outgrossed several major studios’ franchise entries, including the most recent and sequels. dominated the first weekend of December, leveraging a portion of the release calendar. Although ’s $21.8 million first-weekend box office didn’t match the juggernaut of ’s $92.8 million opening, it soared above the debut of any other concert film released in more than a decade. This made 2023 the first year in modern box-office reporting in which two concert documentaries reached No. 1.