Twitter Futures: ‘X-Men: Apocalypse’ Easily Tops Competition

Friday Morning Update: X-Men: Apocalypse easily beat out the competition this past week with 155,693 tweets, almost triple its nearest rival. I am going to be curious to see just what effect (if any) the lukewarm early reviews have on its Twitter buzz going forward. As far as comparisons, its handily ahead of Days Of Future Past (60,082 tweets the same distance out) but it pales in comparison to Fox’s last superhero film Deadpool which had 276,445 tweets at the same point in its prerelease cycle. While tweet levels are important, how those levels increase leading up to release are equally telling, especially for such an established franchise as this which has a large amount of built-in fans.

Ghostbusters took one step down on the week, falling from top spot. Generating over 50k tweets is still a solid number for the film in a non-trailer release week and despite its poor buzz indicators, it is consistently one of the most talked about Summer releases which says a lot about its potential.

Suicide Squad still looms in the background waiting for its chance to explode in August. Interestingly enough, despite massive openings (and impending openings) by Deadpool, Batman vs Superman, Captain America: Civil War and X-Men: Apocalypse, Suicide Squad is the only film of 2016 so far to have more than 500,000 tweets in a single Friday to Thursday period, a feat which it has accomplished twice. Captain America was the closest to the mark with 402,520 in the week ending April 28th.

Rounding out the top five were two family friendly films Angry Birds and Alice Through The Looking Glass, both of which are looking to take the mantle away from Jungle Book as the kid-friendly film of choice for the early Summer. Angry Birds has done well on social media in the months leading up to its release which I suppose isn’t that far of a stretch since its bread and butter is mobile gaming which goes hand in hand with social media. Gaming adaptations generally are bad news, but with its already boasting the most ‘fresh’ RottenTomatoes rating of any game adaptation ever, a solid release date and a massive fanbase worldwide this looks set to buck the trend.

Alice has been largely quiet in the months leading up to release but given the talent involved and the massive opening of its predecessor ($116 million opening in 2010) its got a lot going for it. The fact that it is only now showing in the top 5 three weeks before release is a little worrying though and why we ‘only’ have it pegged for a $70 million Memorial Day holiday start.

Twitter Top 10 Movies for the week of May 6th to May 12th