Comments on: To What Extent Does Word-of-Mouth Affect Your Movie Viewing Habits?

By: JM

JM — Tue, 14 Jul 2009 17:57:09 +0000

Bruno's Friday-to-Saturday drop is comparable with that of "Sex and the City" and "Twilight." Sure, neither of those had great WOM, but their drop was caused far more by the fact that all the fans went to see it on Friday. Is that what happened with Bruno? Did it have a specific group of people that desperately wanted to see it, while nobody else was interested? I personally think this was the case; movies this overtly sexual (homosexual, for that matter) often have limited appeal, but Universal sure pushed the ads, and all the people that wanted to come came.

But word of mouth does have an effect on movies. We did know TF2 would be front-loaded, but its holds haven't been as good as say, POTC2. This is because it is a worse film. I expect a large drop this weekend–at least 50% (which is rather big for the 4th weekend of a blockbuster). It got off easy on its 3rd weekend because of the dearth of competition.

By: GregM

GregM — Tue, 14 Jul 2009 15:52:32 +0000

Don't forget presale tickets. I saw Hurt Locker yesterday (Monday) and all five people ahead of me were buying Harry Potter tickets. Most people I know who saw Bruno bought their Friday tickets online during the week. Same goes for Transformers, especially the IMAX screenings. Word of mouth exists but so do presales.

I saw tweets over the weekend from people either excited to be going to see Bruno, or complaining about Bruno; there were very few positive comments on Twitter from those who saw it.

For those that haven't used Twitter, on the home page there is a list of trending topics: words or tags that appear the most in recent tweets. A user can view the most recent tweets from any Twitter user regarding that topic. Bruno has been trending since about this time last week. For example:

"rubynite Saw Bruno last night and thought it pretty much sucked. There was one funny moment at the end with the minister but that's about it.
less than 5 seconds ago from DestroyTwitter"

By: adu

adu — Tue, 14 Jul 2009 03:35:28 +0000

Yeah I dont care what ppl say either, if a movie looks appealing to me I'll see it no matter what. BTW I hate twitter!

By: Ted

Ted — Mon, 13 Jul 2009 23:20:36 +0000

Edit – finals say now it's a 14.6% Sat->Sun drop-off, which further shows how the Twitter Effect may not be hurting Bruno.

By: Ted

Ted — Mon, 13 Jul 2009 23:18:11 +0000

I think the twitter effect is an important topic, and probably very real, but I don't think it applies to this movie.

The first Fri-Sat dropoff was huge, but that is typical of R-rated movies lately aimed at 17-25 year olds. (Friday the 13th, Watchmen). It is also compounded by the fact that this is a pseudo-sequel to Borat, and sequels also make relatively less from Fri-Sat.

But what's really important is the Sat-Sun dropoff. Websites all over are misinterpreting this data which really show that Bruno held on Sat-Sun better than any other movie this week.

Just look at the charts like Brad has done – the 18.1% decline from Sat-Sun was far less than anything else in the top ten. The "twitter effect" might be very real, but I think this data prove that word-of-mouth isn't doing considerable harm to Bruno.

By: BR

BR — Mon, 13 Jul 2009 21:53:45 +0000

First of all, i do not twitter. Second, i usually dont let others affect my movie choices.

By: Raichu

Raichu — Mon, 13 Jul 2009 18:01:57 +0000

I think the best barometer to gauge word of mouth is on a film's 3rd weekend/week and so on. There is still a good segment of the moviegoing public that are very judicious and rely on feedback from family and acquaintances regarding movies. These people only decide which movies to see based on the consensus of those close to them, and they take their time before getting around to seeing a particular movie. A lot of blockbusters nowadays are heavily frontloaded, thanks to established fanbases and studio marketing efforts which subconsciously implies "You have to see it opening weekend." Word of mouth doesn't affect me much, since I love movies and go to see movies to judge for myself.

By: Chewtoy

Chewtoy — Mon, 13 Jul 2009 15:48:23 +0000

I agree with Roger that it was less a case of word-of-mouth killing it then it was of it simply being a majorly front-loaded film. Cohen has his fans, they all went opening day and shot the movie to those heights. The rest of the weekend better reflected the general audience's desire to watch uncomfortably in-your-face mock-homosexual antics for an hour and a half.

I admit, had the first day's audience come back with tales about how unbelievably funny Bruno was, then it might have pushed the weekend higher… but I don't think that word of mouth chased away many who were inclined to see it in theaters to begin with.

By: Roger

Roger — Mon, 13 Jul 2009 13:20:40 +0000

I don't buy that Twitter will be affecting movies, but I believe Bruno underperformed day-to-day simply because it already has an audience and those who really wanted to see it went opening day. Others, like myself, will probably wait til DVD.

Borat was popular because of people who were curious. Now those who know his act aren't as hyped up for this movie as they were for Borat.

He's a different character but basically doing the same thing as he was in Borat. This seems like the Will Ferrell-effect lol