{"id":331482,"date":"2026-03-06T05:26:09","date_gmt":"2026-03-06T05:26:09","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/331482\/"},"modified":"2026-03-06T05:26:09","modified_gmt":"2026-03-06T05:26:09","slug":"why-concert-films-like-stray-kids-epic-are-hot-at-the-box-office","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/331482\/","title":{"rendered":"Why Concert Films Like ‘Stray Kids,’ ‘EPiC’ Are Hot at the Box Office"},"content":{"rendered":"

Call it the \u201cshock and awe\u201d approach to film<\/a> distribution. <\/p>\n

It was only about a month before the release of Bleecker Street<\/a>\u2018s concert film \u201cStray Kids: The dominATE Experience<\/a>\u201d that the distribution company really started talking about it. And when its trailer was ready to go? That\u2019s precisely when the company made movie tickets and showtimes available for the special event release of the K-pop boy band\u2019s show at SoFi Stadium in Los Angeles.<\/p>\n

With just a handful of available screenings across 1,000 to 1,200 theaters, Bleecker found that \u201cscarcity drives urgency,\u201d as CEO Kent Sanderson told IndieWire<\/a>. The concert film sold $1.4 million in tickets in 24 hours, and the genie was out of the bottle from there. <\/p>\n

\"Amy<\/a> \"Maddie's<\/a> <\/p>\n

While \u201cStray Kids\u201d could have been released wide by Bleecker or by another major, its release plan created the feeling of an event by scheduling only a single showtime an evening, leading to more packed houses at individual showings. It\u2019s something the smaller guys have been well-equipped to handle for years, and something more traditional players are now looking to harness.<\/p>\n

\u201cStray Kids\u201d in just three total weekends in theaters made $7.2 million domestic and a total $23.4 million worldwide (Universal Pictures Content Group handled distribution abroad), with the majority brought in from select event screenings all in that first weekend when it was the No. 1 movie in the world. <\/p>\n

\u201cStray Kids\u201d is now one of Bleecker Street\u2019s most successful releases in the company\u2019s history. It also happens to be the first concert film release for the indie distributor. It won\u2019t be the last, and Bleecker may not be the only ones looking at the genre as a potential area for growth and opportunity at the box office<\/a>. <\/p>\n

There\u2019s nothing new about the prevalence and success of concert films, but while studios have had some one-off successes with them, they\u2019ve largely been the domain of event cinema releasing companies like Trafalgar Releasing or Fathom Entertainment. <\/p>\n

Now, though, they seem to be everywhere. Neon so far has made $9.1 million domestic for the Elvis Presley concert documentary \u201cEPiC,\u201d<\/a> Paramount is releasing a Billie Eilish concert film as directed by James Cameron and Eilish this summer, and Netflix on March 8 will air a live Harry Styles concert.<\/p>\n

It\u2019s easy to give Taylor Swift a majority of the credit for the renewed enthusiasm for concert films; her \u201cEras Tour\u201d movie was the biggest concert film ever released<\/a> at the box office by a mile ($249 million worldwide). But increasingly, indie distributors need to diversify their slates, and exhibitors in turn want a bigger variety of options to keep their screens active. <\/p>\n

\u201cEveryone\u2019s got a much more open mind to what\u2019s appropriate, what works, and it\u2019s what the consumer wants,\u201d said Bleecker\u2019s distribution chief Kyle Davies. <\/p>\n

\"TOKYO,Taylor Swift on the \u2018Eras Tour\u2019 in Tokyo, February 7Getty Images for TAS Rights Mana<\/p>\n

Bleecker specifically targeted Super Bowl weekend for the release of \u201cStray Kids\u201d as a bit of counter-programming to the big game, even agreeing to exhibitor demands to schedule some screenings on Sunday opposite the game. It also opened up some IMAX and other PLF screens that wound up providing a healthy chunk of the film\u2019s box office haul.<\/p>\n

\u201cStray Kids: The dominATE Experience\u201d is the second title (following \u201cWaitress: The Musical\u201d) released as part of a new events cinema label within the distributor called Crosswalk that aims to specialize in event cinema releasing, without sacrificing the other indies the label is known for.<\/p>\n

\u201cThere\u2019s always been a concert film or event film like this from time and time,\u201d Sanderson said. \u201cWhat we want to do is to build a real consistent business around it. Rather than be more opportunistic, we want to be a home for this kind of content and develop a tool set that can be relied upon by our partners to deliver results consistently.\u201d<\/p>\n

Even with some of the biggest artists in the world, these event cinema concerts can flounder if they don\u2019t actually feel like events. Fathom Entertainment CEO Ray Nutt said that after over 100 concert film releases since being founded in 2004, the company has evenly diversified its slate and has been more selective in its offerings, even as competition for some of these titles have ramped up among other distributors. The best ones lean into the concert\u2019s exclusivity and the community element you can only get in a theater. <\/p>\n

\u201cThey want to learn something about an artist or a band or whatever that they\u2019ve never seen or heard before. A lot of it also goes to, does a does an artist or a band have touring going on? That can work both ways,\u201d Nutt said. \u201cIf you have some bands that are absolutely oversaturated in markets and everybody\u2019s seen them live, and they\u2019ve seen the best of them, there\u2019s been certain product out there where people say, \u2018Well, OK, I\u2019ve seen it. I\u2019m not going to go to the movie theater see it.\u2019 We try to work with the band and the management and the content provider to make sure that we\u2019re understanding what the objective is of that band.\u201d<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"Call it the \u201cshock and awe\u201d approach to film distribution. It was only about a month before the…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":331483,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[27],"tags":[88824,2478,93,146212,1043,61,60,270,138186],"class_list":["post-331482","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-movies","tag-bleecker-street","tag-box-office","tag-entertainment","tag-epic-elvis-presley-live-in-concert","tag-film","tag-ie","tag-ireland","tag-movies","tag-stray-kids-the-dominate-experience"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/331482","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=331482"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/331482\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/331483"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=331482"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=331482"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=331482"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}