Twitter Box Office Update

Total tweets for November 20th Openers

The Twilight Saga: New Moon continued to impress on Tuesday, bringing in 65,919 tweets. Down significantly from Monday's figure (30.46%) but that was pretty much expected since Monday night was the star-studded premiere of the film which boasted all of the stars. Besides, its not like 65k tweets is not impressive in and of itself. It blows away all other films for the largest tweet total for a Tuesday ( Paranormal Activity had 11,827 on its Tuesday before release to set the old record). It also still easily beat the total of all other 27 films combined from September 18th to now (they added up to 43,556 tweets in total). I'd expect Wednesday to be level with this number and then it explode on Thursday to close to 100,000 tweets again. What does all this mean for its box office potential you might ask? Well its going to be big! Given past yard sticks it appears set for a $50-$60 million opening day. Wednesday's tweet tally will help to narrow that figure down. Stay tuned.

Planet 51 had a slim increase to 287 from Monday's 242. That 18.60% increase doesn't compare well to Cloudy With A Chance of Meatballs which had 542 tweets for its Tuesday before release and a 40.78% increase from its Monday. Astro Boy had 409 tweets after its corresponding day. It is going to play younger overall than Astro Boy but still, not looking very rosy here for this film's potential at crossing over to older audiences.

Sandra Bullock's The Blind Side gained 772 tweets on Tuesday, good for a 14.20% increase from Monday. Law Abiding Citizen managed 697 tweets on its Tuesday before release for a 11.88% increase over its Monday number of 623. If it follows the pattern of Law Abiding then it will end up with 3,000 to 3,500 tweets, and given my estimate of a 600 ratio that would translate into a $5-$6 million Friday and $13-$16 million opening weekend. This is looking like it could exceed expectations.

Tomorrow boxoffice.com will put up its official estimates with input from this Twitter analysis, check back them for more information.

Twitter tracking history.

The ratio is the number of tweets per $1 million of Friday Box Office gross. A film with 1,000 tweets and a $10 million Friday would therefore have a ratio of 100. In general, films that appeal to very young or older audiences have lower ratios since those audiences are not big users of Twitter. By comparison, films that appeal to younger audiences (18-35) have much higher ratios since those audiences are much more active users of Twitter.