Perennial showgirl Taylor Swift is bringing the box office to life during the first weekend of October. Almost exactly two years after her 2023 documentary The Eras Tour became the highest-grossing concert film of all time, the global pop superstar has returned to theaters with a behind-the-scenes extravaganza celebrating the release of her twelfth studio album, The Life of a Showgirl.

Per Variety, as of Sunday morning, Taylor Swift: The Official Release Party of a Showgirl is projected to earn $33 million at the domestic box office by the end of Sunday. This will be the release’s only weekend in theaters, but it has nevertheless shot straight to No. 1.

Swift is dominating by a wide margin, as last weekend’s No. 1 title, the Leonardo DiCaprio action thriller One Battle After Another, is falling to No. 2 with a projected $10.3 million 3-day haul. However, this has not prevented the Paul Thomas Anderson movie from becoming the highest-grossing movie ever for the Phantom Thread and Boogie Nights director.

One Battle After Another is set to hit $100 million worldwide by the end of the weekend, which will far surpass Anderson’s previous highest-grossing outing, which was 2007’s There Will Be Blood ($77.2 million worldwide).

In fact, that total will comprise nearly one-quarter of the box office that has been earned by all of the extant Paul Thomas Anderson movies put together. Once One Battle After Another hits $100 million, the director’s collected filmography (which also includes Magnolia, Licorice Pizza, Inherent Vice, and The Master) will hit a cumulative $417.7 million.

Meanwhile, Taylor Swift’s new release competitor, The Smashing Machine, is floundering. The Mark Kerr biopic, which was directed by Benny Safdie and stars Dwayne Johnson, is only projected to debut with a 3-day total of $6 million.

This will mark the lowest wide release debut ever for a film with Dwayne Johnson in the lead role, sinking beneath his previous record-holder, which was 2010’s Faster ($8.5 million). Johnson hasn’t had a movie debut below $20 million since 2017, when Baywatch (which co-starred Zac Efron) opened with $18.5 million.

While he is one of the biggest movie stars in the world, Dwayne Johnson movies have had an inconsistent theatrical track record in the 2020s. Moana 2 was a billion-dollar hit, but Red One failed to connect with audiences during its theatrical run.

Additionally, Jungle Cruise and Black Adam struggled to overcome their huge budgets, both of which were reportedly around $200 million or more.

While all three of those 2020s movies have had second lives on VOD and streaming, it is possible that Johnson’s name in and of itself is not providing as much of a draw as other stars like Taylor Swift, and that he needs to work with stronger IPs like Moana and Jumanji in order to get viewers into theaters for the time being.

This Weekend’s Domestic Box Office Top 5

Although several smaller new releases also hit theaters over the weekend, including the horror Western Killing Faith and the psychological thriller Bone Lake, only The Official Release Party of a Showgirl and The Smashing Machine made it into the domestic Top 5. See the full chart below:

The family movie Gabby’s Dollhouse, which was No. 2 during its debut weekend, has dropped farther than One Battle After Another, slipping 52% to hit No. 4. That’s not a catastrophic drop. In fact, One Battle After Another actually dropped more (53%), but it just had a higher position from which to fall.

Meanwhile, the hit horror sequel The Conjuring: Last Rites quietly slipped down just 40%, moving from No. 4 to No. 5. With two new releases taking up space, two of last weekend’s titles have exited the Top 5, perhaps permanently.

These would be the anime smash Demon Slayer: Kimetsu No Yaiba The Movie: Infinity Castle (which fell from No. 3 to No. 6 with $3.5 million at a decent 51% drop) and the lukewarm home invasion sequel The Stranger: Chapter 2 (down from No. 5 to No. 8 with $2.8 million at a similarly solid 52% drop).

With the Taylor Swift release not returning for a second weekend at the box office, the top spot is being left wide open. However, the upcoming Tron: Ares seems certain to claim it.

While the Disney sci-fi movie’s true commercial prospects remain to be seen, as it is a sequel to two cult hits that weren’t runaway theatrical smashes, it will likely only need to earn $10 million or more in order to surpass next weekend’s holdover titles (and its fellow new release, Roofman) to hit No. 1.

This is a total that is well within Tron: Ares‘ reach, even at the most catastrophically low end of its projections, especially in a marketplace without Taylor Swift‘s Showgirl in the way.

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Release Date

September 26, 2025

Runtime

162 minutes

Producers

Adam Somner