Did Twitter Sink Bruno at the Box Office

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.