Twitter Effect in Action?

Recent news from crimson hexagon,
makers of an online conversation-monitoring platform called VoxTrot,
reveals that the word of mouth circulating on Twitter over the weekend
about "Inglorious Basterds" was largely positive. In fact, only 8% of
the 4500 sampled tweets had anything negative to say about the movie.
Not surprisingly, the movie ended up doing extremely well at the box
office, pulling in $37.6 million in the U.S., with an additional $27.1
million overseas, during its opening weekend.

But was Twitter really the impetus behind the movie's success?
According to Matt Atchity, editor in chief of News Corp.-owned review
site Rotten Tomatoes, the answer is "no." He thinks Twitter's influence is overhyped and overrated. In a recent Forbes interview, Atchity is quoted as saying:

"It's an interesting word of mouth, but I think only for a
certain part of the audience. For the younger, more connected audience
that may be true but for older audiences, I don't know...Do I think
Twitter is affecting my cousins in Kansas City and what they see? If
it's a big enough movie, they are going to see it."

Tweets Don't Equal Ticket Sales

He may have a point. Despite the reports and charts
attempting to prove the "Twitter Effect," what's being said on Twitter
may not have as big an impact on real-world actions as is being implied
by these numbers. For one thing, we know that the demographics on
Twitter aren't representative of the demographics of the movie-goers. (Teens don't tweet, remember?) Plus, correlating the volume of tweets about a movie, as research service Trendrr recently did,
only proves people are talking, not what they're saying nor whether
their anticipatory tweets will lead to actual ticket sales. Besides,
don't we all know by now that correlation is not the same as causation?

Online Buzz Doesn't Always Deliver

Finally, online chatter, even when positive, can't save a movie (or a TV show for that matter, as "Firefly" fans will be sure to remind you.) Case in point: 2006's "Snakes on a Plane."
In what was one of the first cases of crowdsourcing movie production to
fans, the filmmakers eventually reshot parts of the movie to meet fan
expectations. They added in more snakes, more gore, and more death
scenes, thus bumping the rating of the movie from PG-13 to R. And, of
course, they added in the now-famous line "I want these mother####ing snakes off the mother####ing plane!"

Based on the online chatter and excitement surrounding the film,
everyone was sure it would be a success. Interest in the film went
viral, with fan-made trailers and scripts, lit-up message boards, and
general frenzy. What happened at the box office? Did "Snakes" become a
smashing success? No, quite the opposite. The movie managed to rake in
only $15 million on its opening weekend and, in the end, grossed $34 million domestically - only $1 million more than the production budget alone. In other words, it bombed.

What this means for Twitter is that the online chatter taking place
on the popular microblogging site, while still an important vector for
studying sentiment, is not powerful enough on its own to truly impact
the overall success or failure of a movie. As of now, only the
movie-going audience can do that. And guess what? They're not all on Twitter... well, at least not yet.