Taylor Swift's Acting Career Faces Yet Another Setback

Taylor Swift is a force to be reckoned with. In the past three years, she has released three studio albums and two rerecords. She also has a new album, "Midnights," dropping next week. Despite her hectic schedule and now semi-frequent album releases, Swift has also made time to dip her toe in the acting pond.

Swift made her big screen debut in 2010's "Valentine's Day" and followed that up with a minor role in "The Giver." Her most famous role, though, is undoubtedly her turn part in 2019's "Cats." Swift played an orange Bengal cat who sprinkles catnip (aka cat drugs) over a cat party, per USA Today. As if Swift's bizarre role in the movie wasn't enough of a hint, the film was not well received. As of this publication, it has been a meager 19% on Rotten Tomatoes. Variety called it an "outlandishly tacky interpretation" and a "once-in-a-blue-moon embarrassment that mars the résumés of great actors." Ouch.

Apparently, Swift wasn't bothered by the bad reviews. In fact, after only having one speaking line in "Cats," she opted to try her hand with a much meatier role in the star-studded "Amsterdam." Here's the thing, though. Bad news for Swift because "Amsterdam" is predicted to be almost as big a disaster as "Cats."

Taylor Swift routinely goes triple platinum and can sell out a stadium tour in a matter of minutes, but not even the ten-time grammy winner could save "Amsterdam." The highly anticipated film, which also stars Robert De Niro, Ana Taylor Joy, and Zoe Saldana, opened on October 7 and bombed at the box office. Over opening weekend, the film earned $6.4 million — nothing in comparison with the reported $80 million budget, per the Daily Mail.

For Swift, this is an all too familiar loss. Not only was "Cats" widely panned by critics, but it also lost a whopping $100 million when all was said and done, per Variety. "Amsterdam" is still in theaters, so there's no way to know its final numbers, but when the additional multimillion-dollar advertising expenditures are tallied up, the net loss could be on par with "Cats." Despite the poor box office performance, "Amsterdam" has played better with critics than "Cats" ever did, though. The New Yorker called it an "exemplary work of resistance cinema." Other outlets were more even-handed, with The Guardian giving it two stars and lamenting the complex plot.

As ever, Swift managed to come out on top. She appeared in the film only briefly, with a comedic performance that GQ called "appreciable." Moral of the story? If you want a meme-worthy ten-minute cameo call, Swift, just don't expect her record sales to translate to ticket sales.