Renaissance
Vice President Kamala Harris and Second Gentleman Doug Emhoff are part of the BeyHive, and attended a Renaissance tour show back in August — and, turns out, the coveted tickets were gifted to the couple by Beyoncé herself. Explore Explore See latest videos, charts and news See latest videos, charts and news According to financial disclosure […]
Beyoncé may be riding high off Cowboy Carter right now, but Renaissance is the gift that keeps on giving.
In a revelatory conversation with Ahmir Questlove Thompson on his Questlove Supreme podcast, renowned choreographer Fatima Robinson revealed how Beyoncé came up with stage design and concept for the Renaissance World Tour during the pandemic — and why the superstar shifted her approach to dance on her most recent trek.
“That was Beyoncé sitting in a pandemic with a lot of time on her hands and coming up with the most incredible, creative stage that I had ever gotten to work on,” Robinson gushed of the Renaissance World Tour stage. The sold-out stadium tour featured two separate platforms connected by a moving ramp, a main stage complete with a sprawling flatscreen, a B stage that stretched into the crowd, and a slew of props including, a tank, pyrotechnics, a laser show, a giant clam shell, robot arms, a flying “disco horse” and various levitating platforms.
In Renaissance: A Film by Beyoncé — the box office-topping documentary concert film chronicling the conception and execution of the tour — Queen Bey revealed that the tour was planned over four years, and three identical stages were developed for the show. The $580 million-grossing tour also featured 22 dancers, including her eldest daughter, Grammy winner Blue Ivy Carter.
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“She has quite a few choreographers across her span of music,” said Robinson. “We gave me the title ‘director of choreography’ because I was the point person that all the choreographers worked under and with. It was such a big boulder to get up a hill, that show.”
While Robinson has worked with Beyoncé in the past — most notably on 2006’s Oscar-winning Dreamgirls and her “Be Alive” performance at the 2022 Oscars — she joined forces with several other choreographers for the Renaissance tour, including her two other team members, Chris Grant and four other choreographers who worked on numbers sporadically.
Her first solo concert tour since 2016’s Formation World Tour, the Renaissance World Tour presented a notably different Beyoncé. While the three-hour show was still a feast for the eyes and ears, the performance included less intense choreography than her past tours — partially due to a knee injury she suffered before those 56 sold-out shows.
“We were having a lot of conversations around when is enough enough?” Robinson explained. “You have nothing to prove, Bey. You are our Michael Jackson of our time. We’re like athletes, at a certain point, you have to just say “Okay, I’m gonna do it, but I’m gonna also take care of myself and be mindful of what my body is telling me right now.”
Robinson’s revelations echo sentiments Beyoncé herself shared in Renaissance: A Film by Beyoncé. Throughout the documentary, Queen Bey mused about looking to her idols to inform how she moves in her career. The Renaissance tour was a celebration of that, from a surprise appearance from Diana Ross to a multi-city tribute to the late Tina Turner.
“Look at how Prince was when he passed away, he had those hip replacements because of all those splits and stuff,” noted Robinson. “Look where Michael [Jackson] is. We want you around performing for years to come, so let’s not put that kind of pressure. Let’s ease into it, let’s stand there and be powerful and step into a different kind of power, and guess what? They gon’ come with you!”
That approach to performing also resulted in a very Beyoncé take on the concept of an opening act. For each show, Beyoncé began with a set of ballads, introduced by a beautiful piano-led rendition of 2003’s seminal “Dangerously In Love 2.”
“I turned to her and I was like, ‘This is really fly, starting with ballads,’” recounted Robinson. “She laughed and she said, “I’m opening up for myself!”
In addition to the Renaissance World Tour, Robinson also worked on 2023’s The Color Purple movie musical, which topped the domestic box office on opening day and earned one Oscar nomination.
Click here to watch the full clip of Fatima Robinson describing the creation of the Renaissance World Tour.
If you thought surprise drops and visual albums were the peak of Beyoncé‘s powers, think again. With 2022’s Renaissance and her buzzy new Cowboy Carter album, Queen Bey is meticulously rolling out a sprawling trilogy of releases that is sure to leave an indelible mark on popular music. Long before “Texas Hold ‘Em” made history […]
Hold your horses! Beyoncé has just unveiled an exclusive limited edition album cover for her forthcoming Cowboy Carter LP, just one day after debuting the album’s eye-popping standard artwork.
On Wednesday, the 32-time Grammy winner took to her official Instagram page to share the alternate Cowboy Carter artwork — which is exclusively available for purchase through her official online webstore.
For the new cover, Beyoncé strikes a statuesque pose on a small, gray platform as she stands completely nude with nothing but a pageant sash covering her body. Her hair is braided up with red, white, and beige beads, while the completely black background echoes the artwork for the rodeo queen-nodding standard cover and the artwork for 2022’s Renaissance album.
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Yesterday (March 19), Queen Bey revealed the standard cover for Cowboy Carter, which features the singer perched backwards on a white horse mid-gallop as she raises a cropped American flag and dons red, white and blue chaps and a pageant sash that reads the album’s title.
The fact that the pageant sash is a recurring motif on both Cowboy Carter album covers was not lost on eagle-eyed fans — especially because of the name printed on the sash for the limited edition cover. Instead of “Cowboy Carter,” that sash reads “Beyincé,” a variant spelling of Tina Knowles‘ maiden name. While some social media commentators were left feeling perplexed at the name, Knowles has spoken at length about the history of her family’s name, most recently during her appearance on Heather Thomson’s In My Heart podcast in 2020.
“A lot of people don’t know that Beyoncé is my last name. It’s my maiden name,” she told Thomson. “My name was Celestine Beyoncé, which at that time was not a cool thing to have that weird name.”
According to Knowles, a businesswoman and fashion designer in her own right, she is one of a handful of people in her family with that spelling of “Beyoncé” due to a clerical error on several of their birth certificates. Her brother and his children, including award-winning songwriter Angie Beyincé, spell their surname with an “I” instead of an “O.”
“I think me and my brother Skip were the only two that had B-E-Y-O-N-C-E,” she continue. “Because we asked my mother when I was grown, I was like, ‘Why is my brother’s name spelled B-E-Y-I-N-C-E? You know, it’s all these different spellings.’ And my mom’s reply to me was, like, ‘That’s what they put on your birth certificate.’” Knowles went on to reflect on asking her mother to demand a correction, but the reality of the times were that “Black people didn’t get birth certificates.”
The new Cowboy Carter album cover brings Beyoncé’s devotion to her family’s legacy — which she sings of in Billboard Hot 100 hit “16 Carriages” (No. 38) — full circle. Now, both her married name (Carter, by way of husband Shawn “Jay-Z” Carter) and her mother’s maiden name are represented in the artwork for her upcoming album.
This isn’t the first time Beyoncé has incorporated her family names in her ventures. In 2006, she and her mother started House of Deréon, a clothing line whose name was derived from her maternal grandmother’s maiden name. Seven years later, she mounted the Mrs. Carter Show World Tour in support of her Billboard 200-topping 4 and self-titled LPs, and in 2016, she launched Ivy Park, an athleisure clothing line whose name is partially inspired by her daughter’s, Blue Ivy Carter.
In addition to sharing the new Cowboy Carter album cover, Beyoncé also shared some snaps from her and Jay-Z’s exclusive annual Gold Party in celebration of the Oscars. Among the photos were a regal shot of her mother, an adorable picture of the “Crazy In Love” power couple snuggling with one and another and several gorgeous flicks showcasing yet another Western-inspired outfit from Queen Bey.
Cowboy Carter —which features “16 Carriages” and the historic Hot Country Songs chart-topper “Texas Hold ‘Em” — hits digital streaming platforms on March 29.
Check out the limited edition Cowboy Carter album cover below:
It’s officially time to saddle up! A little more than a month after making a grand pivot into country music with the release of “Texas Hold ‘Em” and “16 Carriages,” Beyoncé has finally unveiled the official album cover for her forthcoming LP, Cowboy Carter.
A clear continuation of the Renaissance aesthetic, the album cover for Cowboy Carter finds Queen Bey striking a regal pose while perched atop a striking white horse. She dons red, white and blue chaps, a simple white cowboy hat and flowing platinum blonde locks as she raises the American flag. Like the Renaissance album artwork, the background is completely black — save for the slightly illuminated dirt road at the bottom of the frame.
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Queen Bey shared the Cowboy Carter album cover on her official Instagram page on Tuesday (March 19). In her lengthy caption, she detailed the inspiration behind her new record, which has been in the making for “five years.” Cowboy Carter is the official follow-up to 2022’s Billboard 200-topping Renaissance — a sprawling dance record that won four Grammys, housed a pair of Billboard Hot 100 top 10 hits in “Break My Soul” (No. 1) and “Cuff It” (No. 6) and spawned a record-breaking world tour and accompanying box office-topping documentary concert film.
“This album has been over five years in the making. It was born out of an experience that I had years ago where I did not feel welcomed…and it was very clear that I wasn’t,” she wrote, possibly alluding to her experience performing the country-indebted “Daddy Lessons” at the 2016 CMA Awards alongside The Chicks. “But, because of that experience, I did a deeper dive into the history of Country music and studied our rich musical archive. It feels good to see how music can unite so many people around the world, while also amplifying the voices of some of the people who have dedicated so much of their lives educating on our musical history.”
At the top of 2024, Beyoncé unleashed a pair of country singles during the Super Bowl. Alongside “16 Carriages,” a gorgeous Americana-nodding ballad, Queen Bey dropped “Texas Hold ‘Em,” an irresistible country-pop tune that made her both the first Black woman to top Hot Country Songs and the first Black woman to top the Hot 100 with a country song. Despite the commercial success of “Texas,” Beyoncé did face some criticism from players in the genre — one country radio station even initially refused to play, but even they couldn’t resist “Texas.”
“The criticisms I faced when I first entered this genre forced me to propel past the limitations that were put on me,” she continued. “[Act II] is a result of challenging myself, and taking my time to bend and blend genres together to create this body of work. I have a few surprises on the album, and have collaborated with some brilliant artists who I deeply respect. I hope that you can hear my heart and soul, and all the love and passion that I poured into every detail and every sound.”
In her message, Beyoncé both stressed that Cowboy Carter is “a continuation of Renaissance” and acknowledged the Billboard chart history she made with “Texas Hold ‘Em.” “I feel honored to be the first Black woman with the number one single on the Hot Country Songs chart,” she gushed. “That would not have happened without the outpouring of support from each and every one of you. My hope is that years from now, the mention of an artist’s race, as it relates to releasing genres of music, will be irrelevant.”
While Queen Bey has kept the Cowboy Carter visuals under lock and key — just as she did with Renaissance — the album cover reveal is one step in that direction. In fact, Beyoncé’s post coincides with the 10-day countdown until the release of Cowboy Carter — which is currently slated to drop on March 29.
“This ain’t a Country album. This is a ‘Beyoncé’ album,” she declared at the end of her message. “This is act ii COWBOY CARTER, and I am proud to share it with y’all!”
Check out Beyoncé’s Cowboy Carter album artwork below.
When Beyoncé says something, people listen. When she planted her iconic silhouette squarely in front of a towering screen that simply read “feminist,” thousands of essays and think pieces followed. When she sang, “Okay, ladies, now let’s get in formation,” everyone heeded; whether they were boycotting her or queuing up for her then-record-breaking Formation World Tour, people fell in line. Last year, when Queen Bey requested that attendees of the last few shows of her historic Renaissance World Tour wear their “most fabulous silver fashions,” they packed stadiums dressed in outfits shinier than a disco ball. As per The New York Times, searches for silver clothes and sparkly, mirrored cowboy hats increased by 25% that same week.
We listen to Beyoncé because she’s one of the most important artists of our time and very arguably our greatest living entertainer. But we also listen to Beyoncé because – at least since 2013 – she is notoriously silent. Silence, of course, is a part of the present-day Beyoncé brand. How else would the First Lady of Music, deemed as such by one Clive Davis, flawlessly execute her industry-shifting surprise drops or differentiate herself from the hordes of pop stars bending to the algorithmic whim of TikTok and the like?
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Because Beyoncé says very little – and when she does, it’s normally in a very highly curated setting – we collectively project a lot onto her. And we also take her fans’ musings and theories as something of an extension of her artistic intention and the inner workings of Parkwood Entertainment, her production company. This curious phenomenon – the idea that through her current sting of releases, Beyoncé is “reclaiming” whitewashed genres — ran parallel to the entire Renaissance era, and now it’s trickling into Act II. That idea, however, glosses over the contributions of Black artists who have been holding down these genres before the Renaissance trilogy came to life.
As the entire world knows by now – yes, even that one country radio station out in Oklahoma — Beyoncé used her eye-popping Verizon commercial to launch her new album cycle during the 2024 Super Bowl (Feb. 11). That same night, two new country songs (“Texas Hold ‘Em” and “16 Carriages”) appeared on digital streaming platforms, alongside a bevy of chatter that Act II would find Beyoncé “reclaiming” country music as a Black genre — just as she did for the Black queer roots of dance music and culture on Act II’s predecessor, the Billboard 200-topping Renaissance.
But nowhere in the note Beyoncé posted to her website before Renaissance dropped in its entirety (Jul. 28, 2022) — which detailed her latest endeavor as a “three-act project,” and delved into her connection to dance music via the impact her late Uncle Johnny had on her life — does Beyoncé say or allude to “reclaiming” dance as a Black genre. Nor is that stated as an explicit intention of Renaissance or any of the subsequent acts. If anything, the note points to a personal and artistic renaissance for the 42-year-old music icon.
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“Creating this album allowed me a place to dream and to find escape during a scary time for the world,” she mused. “It allowed me to feel free and adventurous in a time when little else was moving. My intention was to create a safe place, a place without judgment, a place to be free of perfectionism and overthinking. A place to scream, release, feel freedom. It was a beautiful journey of exploration.”
Of course, it’s relatively easy to turn everything Beyoncé does into a grand political spectacle. Ever since her eponymous 2013 surprise album – and especially since 2016’s Peabody-winning Lemonade – we collectively view Beyoncé’s art through an intensely political lens. That’s not wholly incorrect to do so, and Act II is no different. However, when that lens isn’t informed by a nuanced or comprehensive understanding of contemporary mainstream country music, the contributions of Black artists preceding “Texas Hold ‘Em” can get unfairly muddied. The idea that Beyoncé is single-handedly reclaiming musical genres with white-washed roots presupposes that Black people have been absent from those genres until this three-act project – and that is not the case. While Black artists may not have been directly at the forefront of mainstream dance and country music in recent years, they have been taking up their rightful space and making meaningful strides in their respective fields.
A year before Renaissance lit up dancefloors around the world with sing-along smashes (“Cuff It”) and Miami bass-indebted rump-shakers (“America Has a Problem”), KAYTRANDA became both the first Black and first queer winner of the Grammy Award for best dance/electronic album. Earning the award for Bubba – which topped Billboard’s Dance/Electronic Albums Chart – KAYTRANADA has spent much of the young decade continuing to bridge the worlds of R&B and house, just as Beyoncé would do with Renaissance.
The same year as KAYTRANADA’s historic Grammy win, SAINt JHN – a Guyanese-American producer and singer – earned the top spot on Billboard’s 2020 Year-End Dance/Electronic Songs chart, becoming the first Black artist to do so since Lil Jon in 2014 and the first Black artist to do so unaccompanied. It should also be noted that Renaissance is the third consecutive album by a Black artist to win the best dance/electronic album Grammy; Black Coffee snagged the award in 2022 for his Subconsciously LP.
Renaissance didn’t “reclaim” dance music as a Black genre; Black artists who call that space home were already keeping the spirit of the genre’s originators alive. What Renaissance did do, however, is help educate the masses on where dance music and club culture comes from. Whether via collaboration (Honey Dijon, Syd) or sampling (the “I Feel Love” flip on closer “Summer Renaissance” remains a career highlight), Renaissance was a musical encapsulation of Beyoncé’s artistic aim for this past half-decade: using her platform to highlight, uplift and pay homage to often unsung movers and shakers across genres.
She’s done this in flashes throughout her career, but her vision truly sharpened on The Lion King: The Gift, her compilation soundtrack for the 2019 photorealistic Lion King remake that doubled as a love letter to Afrobeats, which was then only just starting to cross over to the global stage. On that record, which hit No. 2 on the Billboard 200, Beyoncé tapped African talent from across the continent, including artists like Burna Boy, who would go to be a formidable top 40 presence in the following decade (and help bring Afrobeats along with him).
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Should she continue this endeavor with Act II, she will once again be entering a space that – while relatively foreign to her career– boasts a small, but mighty collection of Black artists taking up as much space as they can. Before “Texas Hold ‘Em” made Beyoncé the first Black woman in history to top Hot Country Songs, stars like Darius Rucker (11) and Kane Brown (13), who boast a combined 24 top 10 hits on the chart, have been making noteworthy strides within the contemporary Nashville machine.
In the years immediately following Beyoncé & The Chicks’ controversial 2016 CMAs performance, stars like Mickey Guyton and BRELAND also made great strides for Black artists in Nashville. In 2021, Guyton became both the first Black woman soloist to earn a Grammy nomination in the country field (best country solo performance for “Black Like Me”) as well as the first Black woman to receive a new artist of the year nod at the CMAs. BRELAND, who first exploded onto the scene in 2019 with the “Old Town Road”-evoking country-trap hybrid “My Truck,” has earned six top 40 hits on Hot Country Songs in just four years. Alongside “My Truck,” Blanco Brown’s “The Git Up” — which topped Hot Country Songs and hit the top 20 on the Billboard Hot 100 – also made a huge impact in 2019.
There’s also an ironic outlier in Tracy Chapman, a cross-generational storyteller who perhaps always fit into the sprawling lineage of country music as proven by the enormous success of Luke Combs’ cover of her seminal “Fast Car.” Thanks to Combs’ take, Chapman became the first Black woman to score a No. 1 at country radio with a solo composition, the first Black songwriter to win song of the year at the CMA Awards.
As evidenced by the historic achievements of “Texas Hold ‘Em” — now also the first country song by a Black woman to reach No. 1 on the all-genre Billboard Hot 100 — progress for Black artists in country music, especially Black women, has been very minimal and very slow. But while many Black female artists have struggled to thrive in country as they may have deserved, they’ve still been present and impactful, and the word “reclamation” erases the strides they made before the launch of Act II. As a billionaire, Beyoncé is effectively an institution, so she can’t really “reclaim” anything. What she can do, however, is pay homage to both her own cultural and familial roots – which, in this context, she first extensively explored on Lemonade standout “Daddy Lessons” — as well as the whitewashed roots of historically Black genres.
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Beyoncé’s presence can start a conversation and keep it going, but a genuine, full-scale reclamation would require a concerted reconfiguration of the industry of each genre she forays into. Beyoncé making a country album won’t magically get more Black female country artists record deals, nor will it magically spur country music awards institutions to nominate and honor Black women while they’re still here. Instead, Beyoncé’s presence can illuminate the other Black women (and men) in country who have been carrying the torches of pioneers Linda Martell and Charley Pride even when things looked far more dire for Black country artists than they do currently.
It’s like she croons in “I’m That Girl,” the opening track on Renaissance, “Touching everything in my plain view/ And everything next to me gets lit up too.” This isn’t reclamation, this is one of the most important entertainers in history using her platform to highlight artists – often those who share some of her social identifiers – who may never experience a fraction of her reach or recognition.
And, for what it’s worth, Beyoncé is already making good on that lyric just two weeks into her country era. Rising country singer Tanner Adell – best known for the spunky “Buckle Bunny” — experienced a 188% increase in official on-demand U.S. streams for her catalog in the weekend following the release of “Texas Hold ‘Em,” according to Luminate. Adell, a Columbia labelmate of Beyoncé’s, has fully leaned into the Beyoncé Country Boom by posting TikToks drawing links between her own music and that of Beyoncé.
During the same period, Martell – the first Black woman to perform at the Grand Ole Opry – saw her catalog streams leap by 275% from the weekend prior. History-making country star and Apple Music Country radio host Rissi Palmer also received a catalog streaming boost of 110%, and catalog streams for Rhiannon Giddens – who plays banjo on “Texas” — jumped by 50%. Even K. Michelle – who, at press time, has less than a handful of country songs available on streaming – saw a significant boost, with her twangy “Tennessee” rising 185% in streams following the release of “Texas Hold ‘Em.”
In an interview with News Channel 5 Nashville, Alice Randall, the first Black woman to co-write a No. 1 country song (Trisha Yearwood’s 1995 hit “XXX’s and OOO’s (An American Girl)”), said: “It’s almost a full-circle moment for me… I almost want to cry. I wanted to see a black woman get to the top of the charts, and I can retire now!”
This is the real power of Beyoncé’s three-act project, and it will likely stand as the biggest example of the trilogy’s impact. It’s all about bringing names like Alice Randall and Tanner Adell and Linda Martell and Rissi Palmer to the forefront, so they can stand alongside Beyoncé’s — in the hopes that once she moves on to the next act, they can remain at the forefront for decades to come.
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Source: Kevin Mazur / Getty / Beyoncé
Did Beyoncé or someone on her team rip off artist Hajime Sorayama with her Renaissance tour visuals?
Spotted on TMZ, Sorayama called out Beyoncé on social media when he posted some of his artwork alongside her Renaissance tour visuals, saying she and her team didn’t contact him for permission.
“Yo @beyonce You should have asked me ‘officially’ so that I could make much better work for you as like my man @theweeknd,” the post read per TMZ’s reporting.
According to the celebrity gossip site, many people were under the impression that Queen Bey got permission to copy Sorayama’s work, but that was not the case.
His angry post doesn’t indicate if he plans on taking legal action against Beyoncé and the people behind her tour, but that doesn’t mean he won’t.
Social media has been reacting to the news. Of course, the hive has their queen’s back, alluding to Sorayama biting off Mugler.
“Mugler was the one who made Beyoncé’s OG robot suit in the early 2000s … this was just petty and incorrect. Huge ego for what exactly?” one user on X, formerly Twitter, wrote in response.
While others are reveling in the fact that someone has the guts to call out Beyoncé for something.
“Seeing Hajime Sorayama call out Beyoncé saying she did a shit job stealing his designs makes me happy,” another post read.
We are willing to bet that Beyoncé crossed her Ts and dotted her Is to ensure something like this wouldn’t happen. Someone on her team either dropped the ball, or this is a big nothing.
In the gallery below, you can see more reactions to Beyoncé allegedly ripping off Hajime Sorayama.
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Photo: Kevin Mazur / Getty
2. Was it?
Beyonce is feeling all the love. The “Alien Superstar” singer took to Instagram on Friday (Dec. 8) to share “gratitude” for the fans and team who supported her Renaissance: A Film By Beyonce concert documentary that hit theaters on Dec. 1. “I am so deeply thankful to AMC and every team member who worked so […]
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Source: Kevin Mazur / Getty / Beyoncé
Beyoncé is closing out 2023 with a box office win thanks to her Renaissance concert film.
Spotted on Variety, Beyoncé can now add Queen of the Box Office to her still-growing list of accomplishments. Renaissance: A Film By Beyoncé won the weekend at US theaters with a $21 million debut, slightly ahead of expectations.
Beyhive members who put on their best Renaissance looks once again to head to theaters to watch Renaissance helped the Houston singer join the ranks of Taylor Swift’s “The Eras Tour” ($92.9 million), 2008’s “Hannah Montana & Miley Cyrus: Best of Both Worlds Concert” ($31.1 million), 2011’s “Justin Bieber: Never Say Never” and 2009’s “Michael Jackson: This Is It” ($23.2 million).
Beyoncé’s $21 million domestic box office debut was a massive win for the movie theater industry that was already reeling following “flops” by Marvel Studios’ The Marvels, Disney Animation’s Wish, and Ridley Scott’s latest epic Napoleon starring Joaquin Phoenix as the French emperor and military commander.
In a quote shared by Variety, the head of movie consulting firm Franchise Entertainment, David A. Gross, said about the film’s performance, “This is an excellent domestic opening for a concert film. There are natural comparisons to Taylor Swift’s recent film, but these are very different artists and audiences.”
While Beyoncé can celebrate her film’s success in the US, that was not the case overseas. The concert film did not meet expectations, only bringing in $6.4 million in 94 territories and earning $27.4 million globally.
There is still time to improve on those numbers.
Renaissance: A Film By Beyoncé is being distributed by AMC Theatres, with the “Cuff It” singer taking 50% of box office earnings while the exhibitors pocket the rest of the earnings per Variety.
These numbers pale compared to Queen Bey’s $549 million worldwide she made from her world tour.
Still, her box office win is nothing to dismiss.
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Photo: Kevin Mazur / Getty
Beyoncé ruled the box office this weekend.
Her concert picture, Renaissance: A Film by Beyoncé, opened in first place with $21 million in North American ticket sales, according to estimates from AMC Theatres Sunday (Dec. 3).
The post-Thanksgiving, early December box office is notoriously slow, but Renaissance defied the odds. Not accounting for inflation, it’s the first time a film has opened over $20 million on this weekend in 20 years (since The Last Samurai).
Beyoncé wrote, directed and produced Renaissance, which is focused on the tour for her Grammy-winning album. It debuted in 2,539 theaters in the U.S. and Canada, as well as 94 international territories, where it earned $6.4 million from 2,621 theaters.
“On behalf of AMC Theatres Distribution and the entire theatrical industry, we thank Beyoncé for bringing this incredible film directly to her fans,” said Elizabeth Frank, AMC Theatres executive vice president of worldwide programming, in a statement. “To see it resonate with fans and with film critics on a weekend that many in the industry typically neglect is a testament to her immense talent, not just as a performer, but as a producer and director.”
Though Renaissance did not come close to matching the $92.8 million debut of Taylor Swift: The Eras Tour in October, it’s still a very good start for a concert film. No one expected Renaissance to match The Eras Tour, which is wrapping up its theatrical run soon with over $250 million globally. Prior to Swift, the biggest concert film debuts (titles held by Miley Cyrus and Justin Bieber for their 2008 and 2011 films) had not surpassed the unadjusted sum of $32 million.
The 39-city, 56-show Renaissance tour, which kicked off in Stockholm, Sweden in May and ended in Kansas City, Missouri in the fall, made over $500 million and attracted over 2.7 million concertgoers. Swift’s ongoing Eras Tour, with 151 dates, is expected to gross some $1.4 billion.
Both Beyoncé and Swift chose to partner with AMC Theatres to distribute their films, as opposed to a traditional studio. Both superstars have been supportive of one another, making splashy appearances at the other’s premieres. Both had previously released films on Netflix (Miss Americana and Homecoming). And both are reported to be receiving at least 50% of ticket sales.
Movie tickets to the show were more expensive than average, around $23.32 versus Swift’s $20.78, according to data firm EntTelligence.
Critics and audiences gave Renaissance glowing reviews — it’s sitting at 100% on Rotten Tomatoes and got a coveted A+ CinemaScore from opening weekend audiences who were polled. EntTelligence also estimates that the audience, around 900,000 strong, skewed a little older than Swift’s.
Lionsgate’s The Hunger Games: The Ballad of Songbirds & Snakes fell to second place in its third weekend with an estimated $14.5 million. The prequel has now earned over $121 million domestically.
Godzilla Minus One is expected to take third place on the North American charts. The well-reviewed Japanses blockbuster distributed by Toho International cost only $15 million to produce and has already earned $23 million in Japan. Toho’s 33rd Godzilla film is set in the aftermath of World War II, stars Ryunosuke Kamiki and was directed by Takashi Yamazaki.
Trolls Band Together landed in fourth place in its third weekend with $7.6 million, bringing its domestic total to $74.8 million.