If tracking surveys are to be believed, Paramount Pictures squeezed another $5 million in boxoffice out of the opening weekend for “Super 8” with its tie-in promotion with Twitter. Not bad and not great either.
The youth-oriented sci-fi yarn finished the three-day premiere weekend with $35.5 million (plus another $1 million from Thursday sneak previews arranged by Twitter). Initially, tracking suggested a soft but okay $25—30 million opening weekend for “Super 8.”
“Of course, this being 2011, we have to work a social-media angle into the discussion,” muses Simon Dumenco in “Advertising Age”. “There definitely has been very strong buzz about ‘Super 8’ on Twitter.” Web buzz tracking service Trenderr “did a roll-up of 13 terms related to the movie (including ‘Super 8,’ ‘#super8,’ ‘#abrams’ and ‘#spielberg’). Friday through Sunday, there was a total of 171,974 tweets using these terms — with a peak of 63,518 tweets on Saturday.”
There you have it folks. Granular web data!
The $35.5 million from 3,379 locations and about 5,500 screens were two thirds the $57.7 million for the opening weekend of the “Karate Kid” remake and less than “Cloverfield’s” $40.1 and “District 9’s” $37.4 million, notes Boxofficemojo. But it was more than the $30.5 million for the remake of “The Day the Earth Stood Still” and $35.6 million for “Battle: Los Angeles.” Mystery filmmaker J. J. Abrams made both “Super 8” and “Cloverfield.”
“’Super 8’s’ marketing was conducted as if the movie were an intended blockbuster: the campaign was massive, ranging from a Super Bowl spot through a raft of television ads as well as promotions on ‘American Idol’ and the ‘MTV Movie Awards,’” wrote Boxoffice mojo’s Brandon Gray. “$35.5 million is not a blockbuster opening for this type of movie in this day and age. ‘Super 8’s’ attendance wasn’t even much higher than ‘E.T.: The Extra-Terrestrial’s’ on the same weekend back in 1982, and ‘Super 8’ had over three times the locations.”
Boxofficemojo continues, “To counter the lack of opening kick, ‘Super 8’ is being cast as a crowd-pleaser with long playability. Paramount noted that the movie’s B+ CinemaScore was the same as ‘True Grit’ and ‘Bridesmaids,’ trying to send the message that ‘Super 8’ should have staying power, even though those movies weren’t apples-to-apples comparisons in terms of genre (or release date). In general, a ‘B+’ from CinemaScore’s opening night moviegoer polling is nothing special.”
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