Twitter Futures: ‘Suicide Squad’ makes it five in a row

Friday Afternoon Update: In its second to last week of eligibility Suicide Squad did what it has been so good at doing over the past month: lead. This past week made it five in a row that the comic adaptation has led all tracked upcoming films in Twitter buzz in our weekly snap-shot. The last time it didn’t lead (it was second), was the week ending June 17 when Moana was queen thanks to its first trailer. The obvious comparison here is Deadpool which had 276,445 tweets during the same week prior to its release. The prospects for the film just keep going up and up, especially with it surpassing Deadpool last week. It’s picking a good time to surge and now an August opening record and a nine figure opening weekend is all but guaranteed.

Rogue One: A Star Wars Story got a big bump at the end of last week with the announcement that the final expansion pack for the popular Star Wars: Battlefront video game will be a tie-in to the movie and released also at the end of the year. That was enough to give it a huge shot in the arm and a bump to the second slot on the weekly chart.

xXx 3: The Return of Xander Cage had its first trailer debut and peak at a decent 12,989 tweets this past Tuesday. By comparison, the first trailer for Vin Diesel’s last film The Last Witch Hunter debuted with just 3,562 tweets last April. The first film in the franchise had a massive $44.5 million opening way back in 2002, as Diesel was red hot after his leading role in the smash hit The Fast and the Furious the year before. Diesel decided not to appear in the sequel which saw Ice Cube take over the lead and as a result the box office plummeted. It’s anyone’s guess how much this third outing can bring in with Diesel rejoining the fray but the early trailer numbers are definitely promising.

Twitter Top 10 Movies for the week of July 15 to July 21