The two biggest popstars on the planet will fight it out to have the biggest concert movie of the year. Luckily, a cowboy hat works for both

If Barbenheimer brought out the war of black vs. pink, then Beyoncé and Taylor Swift’s big-screen concert ventures will be sequins vs. cowboy boots. Or silver vs. pastel. Or even hyper-realistic nostalgic era recreation vs. hyper-realistic nostalgic era recreation. To be honest, the more we say it, the more both outfits work for either, but that’s beside the point. The actual point is that both Taylor Swift and Beyoncé are projecting their landmark tours onto film screens, taking the throne from Barbenheimer’s reign as the saviours of cinema.

Back in September, Swift announced that her sold-out marathon of a 3-hour tour would become the next big cinema event of the year. For fans who didn’t sell their firstborn to a witch under a bridge and so couldn’t get tickets (or for those who saw it once, twice or even 15 times but still want more), she’s filmed all of the concerts in her three-night residency in LA and will mash them together into one movie, which was announced with a flashy trailer and will be distributed worldwide.

Now, Beyoncé might be in the grasp of her cowboy hat crown, as it’s been announced her tour, The Renaissance World Tour, which has been running concurrently with Swift’s and eliciting equal amounts of mania, sequins and TikTok tags, is also coming to the big screen. Unlike Swift’s film, which is a slick-ified run-through of her show, Beyonce’s tour movie will be part concert, part backstage diary and, in typical Beyoncé fashion, part doctrine for life not unlike her Netflix film Homecoming, which chronicled her iconic Coachella headline set. Unfortunately, so far, UK dates for the release haven’t been announced.

Now, before you say anything, yes, Swift’s Eras film and Beyoncé’s Renaissance movie don’t come out on the same day. They don’t even come out in the same month, with Swift hitting screens in October and Beyoncé in December. So how can it be a Barbenheimer? Well, readers, while Barbenheimer may have started out as a literal 24-hour battlefield in the sticky carpeted lobby of a multiplex, now it’s more of a cultural signifier. It’s the core of a person, distilled down to two distinct choices, like if the Matrix’s red and blue pill was about shitposting. Whether you saw Greta Gerwig’s Barbie or Christopher Nolan’s Oppenheimer first said more about your inner world than your scheduling preferences. Do you favour a heavy wool suit or a matching pink set? Do you yearn for life in cool-toned blues or technicolour? Are you more existential or camp? (Although, ironically, both kind of apply here). It’s milk before vs. after the cereal. Nsync vs. Backstreet Boys. Summer vs. Winter. Your choices here define who you are. We don’t make the rules.

Luckily, scheduling doesn’t need to be part of the equation here because, honestly, we simply don’t need another excuse to pit successful women against each other. Both tours made history, both artists re-solidifying themselves as generation-defining superstars in the process. So, you can see Taylor Swift’s eras tour film, have a month or two to cool off and then dust off the sequin cowboy hat again for Renaissance. Both artists have teamed up with AMC cinemas in the US, skirting and releasing their films via Hollywood studios ushering in a new wave of cinema distribution that could shake things up (or off).

But, the spirit of Barbenheimer lives on, and not just because we are desperate to cling to memes even when they’re three months dead in the water. Barbenheimer was a playful riff on standom politics of division, of digital turf wars flinging trolling grenades over the trench walls of charts. Pop fandom, especially, is destined to be rivalrous, whether tongue in cheek or not. When presented with an opportunity for some kind of Sharks vs. Jets allegiance, we will quite literally always take it. Still, at least now there’s a fun naming convention for it. Maybe we can call this one Eraissance.