Rumors that Taylor Swift may have been making a documentary about her recording-breaking Eras Tour have been circulating for well over a year — in part because many attendees, myself included, witnessed filming taking place during our Eras Tour dates.
On Monday, during an announcement on Good Morning America, we learned that the rumors are true. A six-part documentary series titled The End of an Era will be available on Disney Plus starting Dec. 12, the day before Swift’s birthday. In addition, the streaming service will also have a concert film The Eras Tour: The Final Show, an updated version of the Eras Tour Movie filmed at, you guessed it, the final show that took place in Vancouver last December.
Swift’s fruitful partnership with Disney Plus began during the pandemic with the release of The Long Pond Studio Sessions — a reflection on her time making the Folklore album with producers Jack Antonoff and Aaron Dessner, featuring live performances. The two newest offerings will mark Swift’s third and fourth collaboration with the streaming service, which surely earns her unofficial Disney princess status.
The End of an Era
A perfect early Christmas present for any Swiftie, The End of an Era is a documentary series in six parts filmed over the course of the tour, with what appears to be particular emphasis on the London shows. The first two episodes will be available on Disney Plus on Dec. 12. It’s not yet clear when the other four episodes will be available — there could be a weekly release schedule or they could be dropped in batches.
I attended all but one of the Eras Tour Shows in London, and I’m thrilled about the series. The trailer for The End of An Era shows many of the key moments I experienced in person, including appearances by Gracie Abrams, Ed Sheeran, Florence and the Machine and the legendary Travis Kelce cameo.
Every one of these magical moments are etched in my memory, with the Wembley Stadium crowds collectively realizing something different, special and surprising was happening on each night. The trailer suggests we’ll see how these moments were rehearsed, and will shed new light on the various ways Swift planned and prepared to delight us as her audiences.
We’ll also gain new insight into how Swift coped with the emotional intensity of the tour. In one clip included in the trailer, the star is running a bath, overseen by her cat Benjamin, and talks about how hard it is to come down after the show. As she peels off her false eyelashes, she says she watched tons of TV, ate room service and signed a box of 2,000 CDs. “And then I’m tired,” she says. “And then we do the whole thing again.”
The Eras Tour: The Final Show
Over the course of two years, Swift did the whole thing again a total of 149 times, wrapping up the tour in Vancouver, British Columbia, on Dec. 8, 2024. That show was very different from the one that debuted in Glendale, Arizona, in March 2023. It was even different than the show recorded for Disney Plus and made into the Eras Tour movie during Swift’s stint in Los Angeles.
By the time the Eras Tour hit Europe in May 2024, Swift had released a whole new album, The Tortured Poets Department, and had rearranged the setlist to include a new segment based on the TTPD era. In December, for the first time, this version of the show will be available as a stand-alone film.
The Eras Tour: The Final Show will show the last concert of the tour filmed in its entirety. It’s directed by Glenn Weiss, a different director than the original tour movie, and produced by Taylor Swift Productions in association with Silent House Productions.
I only saw this version of the tour, so having a record of this to rewatch will be meaningful to me. It’ll also be important to many other Swifties who didn’t attend the Eras Tour with the original setlist. As with Swift’s Reputation Tour movie, I know I’ll watch it for many years to come to relive the memories of a special summer.
