Did Twitter Sink Bruno at the Box Office
Did Twitter Sink Bruno at the Box Office
Posted 07/14/2009 at 12:35pm
| by Paul Lilly
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When Sony released Godzilla in 1998, the awful loose remake of the 1954 flick Godzilla, King of the Monsters, the movie managed to take in about $74 million in its first week and $380 million worldwide by the time it left theaters. This despite a bad script, poor acting, and what a essentially amounted to a dinosaur flick à la Jurassic Park, only not nearly as entertaining. Sony can be thankful it didn't have to contend with Twitter.
Fast forward a decade and the social networking phenom may have claimed its first box office victim. Universal's Bruno, starring Sacha Baron Cohen from Borat and Ali G fame, took in a respectable $30.4 million in its opening weekend, but was on pace to collect substantially more. After amassing $14.4 million on Friday, Bruno went into free-fall mode dropping nearly 40 percent in its second day, to $8.8 million. Ice Age 3, Transformers 2, Public Enemies, The Proposal, and The Hangover -- the other 5 movies on th chart -- all saw big increases from Friday to Saturday.
While Universal still expects Bruno to be very profitable, the movie's rapid decline in box office revenue during its opening weekend can at least partially be attributed to Twitter, or so believes Richard Corliss of Time.com. Post-movie reaction to Cohen's flamboyant antics of a gay Austrian fashion journalist hasn't been inspiring positive reviews (CinemaScore rated Bruno a C), and Corliss contends Twitter played a role. After all, "instant messaging can make or break a film within 24 hours. Friday is the new weekend," Corliss writes.
But not so fast, says Alex Salkever from AOL's DailyFinance site. While Bruno attracted its share of negative tweets, Salkever says an equal number of positive tweets were also posted.
In the end, Twitter probably played a role in Bruno's declining opening weekend revenue, but to what extent remains a topic of debate. That said, movie studios can consider themselves put on notice.
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Baer
July 15, 2009 at 11:39am
Going to theaters is now such a pain. Besides being expensive you have to put up with all the cell phone screens lighting up, the ringtones, the texting Etc. We find that we usually wait to see it on sattelite PPV or just wait for the download or DVD. There are a few movies however that will get us into the theater, like todays Harry Potter release but they are now few and far between. Borat, er Bruno was certainly not one of them.
neo1piv14
July 15, 2009 at 5:33am
Maybe the movie didn't do so hot because it just wasn't that great of a film. I didn't like Borat for the same reason as Bruno. They're both just painfully stupid to watch, and if I wanted to see a bunch of racists gay bashing someone, I'd just go to my grandparents' house.
Zombie_Bo_Jackson
July 14, 2009 at 9:35pm
My girlfriend and I enjoyed it a lot, but I did notice a lot of the jokes going over the heads of quite a few audience members. Some of the raunchier scenes seemed to silence some people too. I think a lot of people were expecting Borat 2 and didnt know about his Bruno character.
Wildebeast
July 14, 2009 at 7:14pm
I like the '98 Godzilla...
I have not seen this movie, or even Borat. I'm not into Twitter.
But I just love the idea that Twitter, IM, even email could kill a movie's sales.
I'll never forget the last movie I paid to see, that sucked so bad I should have walked out. (I didn't because it had gotten good reviews --I thought it might recover -----and it did NOT, in any way.)
I love to see some kind of IM based rating system, where everybody who has a ticket stub gets to vote on a film they've seen.
Maybe this is the next big Twitter/iPhone--live on-line concept. Of course, then the Studios would probably come up with some trick to skew the voting...
Awesome films deserve the Buzz, and Crap movies deserve that, as well.
I Jedi
July 14, 2009 at 8:00pm
Thank you.. Thank freaking you... Someone who actually agrees with me that the '98 Godzilla movie was actually good...
I Jedi
July 14, 2009 at 7:58pm
You would think that someone who represents a real company would send a private email to the writer of this article and FOR SURE spell and use grammar correctly.
QUINTIX256
July 14, 2009 at 6:32pm
There is advertising, and then there is spam. What you are doing is spam. Get off this board before you embarass yourself and the company you work for any more.
You can have your recession. I'm not participating.
Machus
July 14, 2009 at 3:07pm
http//fah-web.stanford.edu/cgi-bin/main.py?qtype=userpage&username=Machus
I fail to see why there would be a sequel, the first was bad enough and even that one I wouldn't watch unless I was forced.
Vegan
July 14, 2009 at 4:50pm
Gay people are morons? Wow.
Also, I *wish* movies were $10. You'd think Hollywood would cut people a break in its own city. Movies are more expensive here than anywhere else. Try $14.
Nycromes
July 15, 2009 at 7:33am
I'm pretty sure that they were refering to Sacha Baron Cohen and not to gay people in general. I happen to agree. He has some funny moments, but most of the humor is lost on me. I just don't enjoy that kind of humor at all.
Also, on another note, I have seen it estimated that roughly 10% (I think thats a generous estimate) of internet users actually use twitter. Though I would venture to guess that a large percentage of that 10% are people in the primary target audience for this film. Twitter is highly glamorized in the media, but in actuality there aren't that many people actually using it. It's impact is probably minimal at best.
Jox
July 14, 2009 at 1:53pm
Going to the movies is such a generally unpleasant experience that I don't even bother any more. I'd much rather rent a movie and watch it on my comfy couch while enjoying some chicken wings and beer. Nobody's kicking my seat or talking about what they're going to do after the movie or walking in front of me to go to the washroom (or leave the theatre cuz the movie is awful). Also, my ass doesn't hurt when I rent a movie like it does after being raped by the box-office ticket prices theatres charge. I can get enough popcorn to make an elephant puke for what they charge for one bag of the stuff.
With VERY few exceptions, I won't see movies in the theatre anymore.
-Jox
dropslash
July 14, 2009 at 1:15pm
While I have no doubt that the ability to broadcast an instantaneous review to a social network can impact potential viewership, it’s sadly not much of a match for the Hollywood hype machine, yet. The image in this article is dead on, Sacha Baron Cohen is just old news.
If social network communication like Twitter was really having a serious impact on ticket sales for bad movies, there’s no way Transformers 2 would have seen an increase.
I Jedi
July 14, 2009 at 12:56pm
Sorry, but I have to say that the 1998 version of Godzilla was probably the best Godzilla movie I ever saw. It's too bad Twitter wasn't around to judge the movie during that time, though.
DOOMHAMMA
July 14, 2009 at 5:01pm
The very last Godzilla, (Final Wars?) is greatly amusing, I mostly love it because you see Godzilla destroy that awful American Godzilla.
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