Twitter Box Office Update

Total tweets for November 20th Openers

The Twilight Saga: New Moon destroyed pretty much everything else movie related again on Wednesday. It rose by 9.88% from Tuesday's 65,919 tweets to 72,431 tweets which was a 'tad' ahead of Michael Jackson's This Is It 's 14,732 on its Wednesday to give it the record for the day. It also passed another milestone in that it has now got more tweets in the last three days than that last 27 wide release films had during the four days before their release. It appears to be on course for about 320,000 - 340,000 tweets. Its tweet to box office ratio is going to be ridiculously high, and as such i'm going to go with a ~5,000 ratio which would give it around $60-$65 million on opening day. Expect it to be heavily frontloaded (the first film's Friday Box Office was more than Saturday and Sunday combined) which would give it a November record opening of ~$110 million. Check back tomorrow for the final updates.

Planet 51 saw a modest 20.56% increase to 346 tweets on Wednesday. Cloudy With A Chance of Meatballs had 524 tweets on its corresponding Wednesday. Planet 51 is generating about three quarters of the tweets Cloudy did but I expect its ratio to be higher since it is in fewer theatres which almost always drives ratios upwards. The lack of numbers here really indicate that the film is not breaking outside of its kiddy demographic. Expect about 1,500 tweets by the end of tomorrow and a 400 ratio for a $3.75 million Friday and a $13 million weekend.

Sandra Bullock's The Blind Side jumped 26.94% to 980 tweets for Wednesday. The film appears set for a 3,500 tweet week. My estimate of a 600 ratio should give it around $5.5 million on Friday and $15 million for the weekend. Check back tomorrow for the final update.

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.