Taylor Swift’s ‘Showgirl’ film dominated the box office. But did it help cinemas?

In one scene in her new film, “The Official Release Party of a Showgirl,” Taylor Swift, seated in a director’s chair, looks into the camera and declares, “In my industry, attention is affection.”

In one scene in her new film, “The Official Release Party of a Showgirl,” Taylor Swift, seated in a director’s chair, looks into the camera and declares, “In my industry, attention is affection.”

Swift is explaining the inspiration for her song “Actually Romantic,” which fans have widely speculated is about her strained relationship with Charlie XCX. But Swift’s comment is also a distillation of her business philosophy, which played out in spectacular fashion at movie theaters over the weekend.

“The Official Release Party of a Showgirl,” a theatrical, three-day-only event that correlated with the sale date of her new album, pulled in over $50 million globally, according to its distributor, AMC Theatres.

The movie, which Swift wrote and directed, is not a traditional piece of cinema: It consists of behind-the-scenes footage of her making the music video for “The Fate of Ophelia” and brief interviews and lyric videos of the other songs on the album.

“It really is a 90-minute infomercial for Taylor Swift’s new album,” said Paul Dergarabedian, head of marketplace trends at Comscore. “It’s a brilliantly disguised marketing tool to sell more streams of her albums, and fans loved it.”