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Did Twitter Sink Bruno at the Box Office

Posted 07/14/09 at 03:35:39 PM  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.

COMMENTS:17
TAGS: movies, twitter, Social Networking, bruno, sacha baron cohen
COMMENTS
avatarHas to be great to get us into a Theater anymore

Submitted by Baer on Wed, 07/15/2009 - 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.

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avatarMaybe the movie didn't do so

Submitted by neo1piv14 on Wed, 07/15/2009 - 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.

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avatari enjoyed it

Submitted by Zombie_Bo_Jackson on Tue, 07/14/2009 - 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.

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avatarthis is hilarious

Submitted by Wildebeast on Tue, 07/14/2009 - 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.

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avatarThank you.. Thank freaking

Submitted by I Jedi on Tue, 07/14/2009 - 8:00pm

Thank you.. Thank freaking you... Someone who actually agrees with me that the '98 Godzilla movie was actually good...

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avatar.

Submitted by mclovin on Tue, 07/14/2009 - 6:27pm

There's one problem with this post...Bruno wasn't a bad movie.

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avatarbose headphones

Submitted by bose2009 on Tue, 07/14/2009 - 5:28pm

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avatarYou would think that someone

Submitted by I Jedi on Tue, 07/14/2009 - 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.

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avatarYou really should stop.

Submitted by QUINTIX256 on Tue, 07/14/2009 - 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.

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avatar$10 a ticket is too much to pay for a movie about a moron

Submitted by Machus on Tue, 07/14/2009 - 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.

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avatarGay people are morons?

Submitted by Vegan on Tue, 07/14/2009 - 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.

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avatarI'm pretty sure...

Submitted by Nycromes on Wed, 07/15/2009 - 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.

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avatarGoing to the movies is such

Submitted by Jox on Tue, 07/14/2009 - 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

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avatarNot quite there yet...

Submitted by dropslash on Tue, 07/14/2009 - 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.

 

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avatarSorry, but I have to say

Submitted by I Jedi on Tue, 07/14/2009 - 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.

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avatarBest Godzilla Movie Ever??

Submitted by One4yu2c on Tue, 07/14/2009 - 4:29pm

I just died a little inside.

-Paul Lilly

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avatarhehe

Submitted by DOOMHAMMA on Tue, 07/14/2009 - 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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