‘Ninja Turtles’ Lead Crowded List Of Contenders

Tuesday Morning Update: Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles led this week’s newcomers handily on Monday, accounting for 15,434 tweets and 859,737 likes on the day. The film has the broadest appeal and indeed biggest marketing push of any of the four new wide releases on the weekend and as such it would be a shock if it didn’t come out on top. The Ninja Turtle franchise has a storied past which has made it one of the most popular over the last thirty years including four previous films which has accumulated over $500 million in adjusted North American earnings. That’s the good news, the bad is that the market is filled with deadly competition from Guardians Of The Galaxy which hits the exact same target audience, and with a budget of $125 million this has a really high bar for success. By comparison, Transformers: Age Of Extinction had 17,087 tweets and just over 32 million likes (they didn’t have a Facebook page dedicated to that particular film, only for the franchise) while Godzilla had 40,223 tweets and 1,117,896 likes. The social media footprint here is definitely sizeable but with poor reviews flooding in and tainting the sentiment and what is sure to be a very strong holdover in Guardians it has an uphill struggle to attain profitability during its run in theaters.

Into The Storm had a very strong Monday on Twitter thanks to its New York premiere which it rode all the way to a 9,255 day. Facebook on the other hand has been much more reserved and its like total of 339,923 leaves a lot to be desired. I’m anxious to see what its tweets fall to for Tuesday as the news of the premiere wanes but based on early numbers (which has seen it fall to 16th place on the day so far) I believe its going to be a hefty decline. The film was hoping for a Twister-type appeal but with a crowded market place, no big stars, poor reviews and less than stellar social media buzz low double digits might be its best bet.

Step Up All In had 6,169 tweets on Monday (since its another franchise that reuses its Facebook page a likes comparison is virtually useless her to other films) up 75% from 3,525 tweets on Sunday. This marks the fifth entry in the Step Up franchise and while its domestic totals has decreased with every release ($65 million, to $58, to $42 to $35) its international cume has more than doubled over the same span. By comparison, Step Up Revolution had 11,149 tweets its Monday before release. Step Up films have tended to have weak expansion during its release week as it has always had a vocal fan base so unless it has massive increases from day to day this week to signal something out of the ordinary I find it hard seeing it do anything more than $10 million at max.

Last up is The Hundred Foot Journey which finished Monday with a slim 941 tweets and 26,896 likes. Paltry numbers at face value but the target audience here are going to be over 50 and as such will leave the smallest social media footprint. Its going to be a crowded race for second spot amongst the new openers because I can see this too opening in the low double digit range possibly. Let’s see how the numbers tomorrow look but the only sure bet on the weekend amongst the four openers is that Turtles will be on top.

Twitter Top 15 Movies for Tuesday August 4th