Beyoncé's 'Renaissance' Film Could Break Records, Eyeing $20M+ Opening

Renaissance: A Film by Beyoncé is hitting theaters in just a couple weeks, and the projected earnings are already looking promising.

According to Deadline, the concert film/documentary hybrid is currently expected to make around $20 million on its opening weekend. That’s in line with prior expectations, but of course anything could happen between now and then to shift those numbers.

While some have compared this to Taylor Swift’s Eras Tour film’s $92.8 million domestic opening, the two ultimately aren’t playing in the same realm. Eras Tour was marketed as a concert event in theaters, dropped in the middle of the Swift’s ongoing tour that celebrates her entire discography and shaking up theatrical expectations during Hollywood’s strikes, whereas Renaissance is said to merge documentary with concert footage, and will arrive two months after the tour concluded.

It’s also worth noting that Beyoncé’s film will be released on a weekend that historically has not seen particularly high debuts—and she very well could break the record. Forbesnotes that the biggest launch for the first weekend in December was the 2003 Tom Cruise film The Last Samurai, which brought in $24.2 million. The projected earnings for Renaissance are steadily creeping up on that, and as of it now, the film is likely to at least come in second, if it doesn’t overtake the record entirely.

All this to say, Renaissance is set to join Eras Tour as an example of concert films changing the game for struggling theaters this year—particularly AMC. And the Los Angeles premiere on November 25th is expected to set the tone for how the most enthusiastic Beyoncé fans approach their theatergoing experience, with everyone eager to see how celebs turn out with its dress code of “cozy opulence.”