Why Concert Films Like ‘Stray Kids’ and ‘EPiC’ Are Hot Tickets at the Box Office

Call it the “shock and awe” approach to film distribution.

It was only about a month before the release of Bleecker Street‘s concert film “Stray Kids: The dominATE Experience” that the distribution company really started talking about it. And when its trailer was ready to go? That’s precisely when the company made movie tickets and showtimes available for the special event release of the K-pop boy band’s show at SoFi Stadium in Los Angeles.

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

While “Stray Kids” 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’s something the smaller guys have been well-equipped to handle for years, and something more traditional players are now looking to harness.

“Stray Kids” 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.

“Stray Kids” is now one of Bleecker Street’s most successful releases in the company’s history. It also happens to be the first concert film release for the indie distributor. It won’t 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.

There’s nothing new about the prevalence and success of concert films, but while studios have had some one-off successes with them, they’ve largely been the domain of event cinema releasing companies like Trafalgar Releasing or Fathom Entertainment.

Now, though, they seem to be everywhere. Neon so far has made $15.4 million for the Elvis Presley concert documentary “EPiC,” Paramount is releasing a Billie Eilish concert film as directed by James Cameron this summer, and Netflix on March 8 will air a live Harry Styles concert.

It’s easy to give Taylor Swift a majority of the credit for the renewed enthusiasm for concert films; her “Eras Tour” movie was the biggest concert film ever released 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.

“Everyone’s got a much more open mind to what’s appropriate, what works, and it’s what the consumer wants,” said Bleecker’s distribution chief Kyle Davies.

Taylor Swift on the ‘Eras Tour’ in Tokyo, February 7Getty Images for TAS Rights Mana

Bleecker specifically targeted Super Bowl weekend for the release of “Stray Kids” 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’s box office haul.

“Stray Kids: The dominATE Experience” is the second title (following “Waitress: The Musical”) 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.

“There’s always been a concert film or event film like this from time and time,” Sanderson said. “What 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.”

Even with some of the biggest artists in the world, these event cinema concerts can flounder if they don’t 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’s exclusivity and the community element you can only get in a theater.

“They want to learn something about an artist or a band or whatever that they’ve 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,” Nutt said. “If you have some bands that are absolutely oversaturated in markets and everybody’s seen them live, and they’ve seen the best of them, there’s been certain product out there where people say, ‘Well, OK, I’ve seen it. I’m not going to go to the movie theater see it.’ We try to work with the band and the management and the content provider to make sure that we’re understanding what the objective is of that band.”