AMC Theater CEO Admits to Leaking Beyoncé's "Renaissance" Film News, While Keeping Taylor Swift's Film News a Secret

Photo/Instagram/Beyoncé and Taylor Swift

Randi Richardson for Today reported the following story: 

AMC Theatre's decision to leak the news of Beyoncé's concert film to its competitors while keeping Taylor Swift's movie a secret is sparking outrage from the BeyHive.The theater chain partnered with the two singers to release "Taylor Swift: The Eras Tour" and "Renaissance: A Film By Beyoncé" on Oct. 12 and Dec. 1, respectively. AMC was the only theater chain to know about the films in advance, which made Hollywood feel "slighted" as the historical distributors of industry movies, Variety reported in an interview with AMC's CEO Adam Aron published on May 23.

"We couldn't blow Taylor's secret," Aron said of AMC's decision to keep Swift's film a secret.

AMC took a different approach to Beyoncé's film, which premiered seven weeks later, to mend fences with the studios. The company gave its competition a "super-secret heads-up: Don't tell anyone, but be ready to put tickets on sale," Variety reported. "At least half a dozen movie circuits leaked the news," Aron said. "Beyoncé was seriously thinking about not doing the movie at all because the secret was blown. So, they didn't keep their word," he added.

TODAY.com reached out to both Swift's and Beyoncé's reps but has not heard back yet. As news of how AMC released both concert films circulates, Beyoncé's fans are ripping into the company for what they call "sabotage" and unprofessionalism. "Beyoncé should NEVER conduct business with AMC Theatres again. The CEO of @AMCTheatres deliberately leaked information to their competition about the RENAISSANCE Film before tickets went on sale because of hurt feelings. He did NOT respect Beyoncé enough to hold up his side of the business agreement and instead decided to run his mouth," one fan tweeted, calling the act in a separate post "sabotage."

"I really hope Beyoncé decides to never work with AMC again...like that's extremely unprofessional." another said. "AMC sacrificed Beyoncé at Taylor's altar. has the entire American entertainment industry behind her. They want HER to be the most successful female artist. No matter how mediocre she is, they will be loyal to America's sweetheart," a third chimed in. The company has been releasing concert movies to help dig itself out of its $4.5 billion hole, Variety reported. Aron says AMC expects to debut a few concert films a year.

The total worldwide gross for Beyoncé's "Renaissance" film was about $44 million and Swift's "The Eras Tour" grossed $261.6 million globally, IMDb reported. News of AMC leaking Beyoncé's concert film to competitors but not Swift's is the latest example of how the two megastars are often pitted against each other, as two highly successful women in the music industry.

Beyoncé thanked AMC and fans when her movie hit No. 1 in December. "I am so deeply thankful to AMC and every team member who worked so hard on this film," she wrote in a statement on Instagram Dec. 6. "I just can't thank all of you enough for your support. It was one of the hardest things I've ever done because of the short turn around time. I practically slept in the edit, color, and mix sessions. The race against time continued in order to get this film out so quickly. But it was so worth all the grind." Beyoncé and Swift attended each other's movie premieres and took pictures together.

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