Taylor Swift’s surprise film announcement has “haunted” Universal into releasing the latest installment of “The Exorcist” one week early.
The “Karma” singer took to social media on Thursday morning to share that her Eras Tour film would hit theaters on Oct. 13, the same release date that the distributor set for “The Exorcist: Believer.”
But after the concert film’s AMC ticket presales reportedly sailed past $10 million and sparked ”#Exorswift” memes, Jason Blum – one of “The Exorcist” sequel’s producers – said the horror film would move up to an Oct. 6 release date.
“Look what you made me do,” wrote the Blumhouse Productions founder and Oscar-nominated producer in a nod to the singer’s 2017 song.
“The Exorcist: Believer moves to 10/6/23 #TaylorWins.”
The horror film isn’t the only would-be Swift competitor to bow out of a potential release date faceoff.
Rapper Moneybagg Yo pushed back the release date of his project “Hard to Love” after he heard that Swift would drop new editions of her album “Midnights” on May 26.
“Y’all be patient with me, man, let Taylor have this shit,” the rapper said in a video shared to social media.
Swift’s film announcement led to fans experiencing “wait times and lags” to purchase tickets on AMC Theatres’ app and website, NBC News reported.
The tour, which began in March and is set to continue through the end of next year, is expected to gross over $1 billion.
“It would be unwise to underestimate the power of Taylor Swift to draw legions of Swifties to the multiplex, but the release [could] also could draw new fans looking to get in on the Eras Tour experience,” Paul Dergarabedian, senior media analyst at Comscore, told the outlet.
“This could propel an unprecedented opening weekend that could perhaps top $100 million.”
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