LOS ANGELES, CALIFORNIA – FEBRUARY 02: (FOR EDITORIAL USE ONLY) Taylor Swift attends the 67th GRAMMY Awards on February 02, 2025 in Los Angeles, California. (Photo by Frazer Harrison/Getty Images)
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Taylor Swift is back in theaters Friday with The Official Release Party of a Showgirl to celebrate the release of her album The Life of a Showgirl. How soon will it be before the big-screen event is available to stream at home, if at all?
The Official Release Party of a Showgirl begins with specially timed screenings that begin at 3 p.m. ET/2 p.m. CT/12 p.m. PT sharp — with no trailers — on Friday and will end its short run in theaters on Sunday. Swift, of course, dominated the movie box office in October of 2023 when she teamed with AMC Theatres to release her concert film Taylor Swift: The Eras Tour, which earned an astounding $93.2 million in its first weekend at the North American box office.
By the time Taylor Swift: The Eras Tour wrapped up its 13-weekend run in theaters, it earned nearly $180.8 million domestically and $80.6 million for a worldwide box office gross of $261.4 million. Taylor Swift: The Eras Tour had a $15 million production budget before marketing costs, per The Numbers.
The biggest difference between Taylor Swift’s The Official Release Party of a Showgirl and The Eras Tour is that Friday’s release is technically not a movie. Instead, AMC Theatres noted, the big-screen event includes “the exclusive world premiere of the music video ‘The Fate of Ophelia,’ along with behind-the-scenes footage from the music video shoot, brand new lyric videos, and Taylor’s never-before-seen personal reflections on songs from her 12th studio album, The Life of a Showgirl.”
The streaming date for Swift’s The Official Release Party of a Showgirl is difficult to project because when it comes to showing her work in theaters, the global music superstar marches to her own beat.
If The Official Release Party of a Showgirl was being distributed by a studio, generally studios follow release patterns. For example, Warner Bros. typically has a one-month window between the day any one of its films open in theaters to the day it arrives on digital streaming. Disney, on the other hand, has a 90-day window between its theatrical and digital streaming release dates.
However, anyone who wants to guess how long it takes one of Swift’s theater events to arrive on streaming after it opens on the big screen only have one example of her work — The Eras Tour concert film — to go by.
TOPSHOT – This photo taken on February 3, 2024 shows fans of US singer Taylor Swift, also known as Swifties, reacting as they watch concert film “Taylor Swift: The Eras Tour” at a cinema in Beijing. Waving glow sticks, and sporting sequin dresses and friendship bracelets, Chinese fans of American pop sensation Taylor Swift turn a normally-quiet Beijing cinema into a raucous celebration of their favourite singer. (Photo by Jade GAO / AFP) / To go with AFP story “China-entertainment-music-Swift-fans”, SCENE by Luna LIN (STF) (Photo by JADE GAO/AFP via Getty Images)
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Taylor Swift: The Eras Tour opened in 3,855 North American theaters on Oct. 13, 2023, and began its 13th and final weekend in theaters on Jan. 4, 2024. The concert film’s last day in theaters was on Jan. 11, where it played in 71 theaters domestically.
After that, Taylor Swift: The Eras Tour skipped the digital streaming marketplace — which offers films for purchase or rent on premium video on demand — and made its streaming video on demand premiere just over five months after its theatrical release on the Disney+ streaming platform.
Disney paid $75 million for the rights to stream Taylor Swift: The Eras Tour concert film — plus five bonus songs not seen in theaters — on Disney+, according to Variety, but the big investment appeared to pay off. The industry trade publication reported that in the first three days that Taylor Swift: The Eras Tour streamed on the platform, it had 4.6 million views, which equated to 16.2 million viewing hours, making it the No. 1 most-streamed music film ever on Disney+.
As of the publication of this article, there has been no announcement from any streamer — including Disney+ — about the purchase of streaming rights to The Official Release Party of a Showgirl.
If Disney steps forward again and follows the same release pattern as Taylor Swift: The Eras Tour, that means The Official Release Party of a Showgirl would not debut on Disney+ until the week of March 1, 2026.
While the five-month strategy clearly worked for Taylor Swift: The Eras Tour, there seems to be no real benefit to do the same for The Official Release Party of a Showgirl. To begin with, the purpose of the film is to celebrate the release of The Life of a Showgirl album during the same weekend it becomes available, and the release of both the fan event and album in March of 2026 will be old news items by then.
Additionally, The Eras Tour concert movie honored a 13-week theatrical engagement, whereas The Official Release Party of a Showgirl will come and go in three days. On top of that, Swift will likely drop one of the biggest features of the release party event — “The Fate of Ophelia” music video — everywhere online as soon as The Life of a Showgirl album is released or Monday after the event is done in theaters at the latest.
After all, music videos are produced to help sell music, and it would make zero sense to any artist to keep a music video from a new album locked within a video event that can’t be seen on any streaming service for an undetermined amount of time.
As such, press publications and fans will have to remain in a “wait-and-see” mode for the debut of The Official Release Party of a Showgirl, that is, if it makes a streaming debut at all. Another option for Swift is to release the fan event on digital streaming via premium video on demand anytime after this weekend while the hype is still fresh. That option would give Swift the opportunity to make more money on fan event with PVOD purchase or rental fees.
One way or the other, The Official Release Party of a Showgirl will stream somewhere at some point, since the fan event contains behind-the-scenes footage from the making of “The Fate of Ophelia” video and personal reflections from Swift. Material like that will certainly be valuable to Swifties and there will no doubt be a demand for after the fan event wraps up its run in theaters on Sunday.
‘The Official Release Party of a Showgirl’ Is Projected To Finish At No. 1 At The Box Office This Weekend
While Taylor Swift’s The Official Release Party of a Showgirl movie theater event isn’t projected to make near the amount Taylor Swift: The Eras Tour did in its first three days of its release in October of 2023, it still stands to make a decent amount of money in its three-day run.
Even though it is facing off against a heavy-hitting movie newcomer The Smashing Machine — starring Dwayne “The Rock” Johnson — both Variety and Deadline project Taylor Swift: The Eras Tour to easily take the No. 1 spot at the weekend box office.
Citing tracking estimates, Deadline projects Taylor Swift: The Eras Tour will earn $30 million to $35 million from Friday to Sunday, while Variety is pegging a $35 million to $40 million opening in the film’s first and only three-day frame.
The Smashing Machine, meanwhile, is projected by Deadline to make $9 million to $10 million from 3,000 theaters, while Variety is projecting the film will open anywhere between $8 million and $15 million.
The Official Release Party of a Showgirl begins in theaters on Friday at 3 p.m. ET/2 p.m. CT/12 p.m. PT.
Source: https://www.forbes.com/sites/timlammers/2025/10/03/when-will-taylor-swifts-release-party-of-a-showgirl-come-to-streaming-the-answer-is-complicated/
