Twitter Futures: Two in a row for ‘X-Men: Apocalypse’

Friday Morning Update: X-Men: Apocalypse repeated atop the leaderboard this past week with just shy of 200,000 tweets. Hardly a surprise seeing as though this was the week before its release but still reassuring all the same. As always, the best comparison here should be X-Men: Days Of Future Past which had 130,171 tweets the same period before its release. Now sequels do almost always see a bump in traffic compared to their predecessors, even if only because of the growing fanbase and/or fanboys so I don’t suggest a 50% box office jump to match these numbers but it is clear that the franchise is very much in line for another hugely successful opening.

Despite a new trailer Ghostbusters couldn’t improve on its second spot this past week, even with its big 175,204 tweets. Like it or hate it, the reboot of the 80s iconic franchise is generating a ton of buzz online for every stitch of marketing it offers up. Many people hate on the film out of principal, because they feel it does not need to be rebooted just for box office $$. Others dislike the all-female casting which they feel changes the formula too much. While others (though admittedly a minority) think the new direction is just the shake-up that summer blockbusters need. Whatever the reason, none of it has to do with the merits of the film itself as it has yet to be screened. If it can manage to put forward a solid film and word of mouth swings in its favour it will profit handsomely from all of this buzz, both good and bad, because raising the visibility of the film in any form is a good thing in my books.

Rounding out the unchanged top 3 was Suicide Squad. ~50,000 tweets as its usual weekly churn without any new material is excellent for a net new film of a non A-List comic property (that could be debated I suppose).

Alice Through The Looking Glass rose a single spot in its last week of eligibility here. The film appears to have really missed the mark with teens and twenty-somethings with its sequel which would explain for the lack of numbers. Way back in 2010 when the first movie opened it had 33,489 tweets the same distance before release. Since then Twitter has grown considerably as have the studio’s focus on using social media as a marketing channel. While no one expected this film to open north of $100 million, still the fact that the two numbers are so similar is worrying for its potential.

Finding Dory has been quietly sitting awaiting its turn to empty pockets later this year. With family releases having some of the biggest surprises this year (namely Zootopia and The Jungle Book) Dory will be hoping to also have a breakout beginning and possibly challenging for the largest animated opening ever (Shrek the Third – $121 million way back in 2007).

Twitter Top 10 Movies for the week of May 13th to May 19th