Summer is that exciting time of the year for Hollywood when it unleashes its annual flurry of action, adventure, and edge-of-your seat entertainment. Weeks leading up to the launch of blockbusters are riddled with movie studios engaging in an all-out, red-carpet-bombing, media blitz to generate awareness, visibility, and that all-important “buzz” designed to guarantee their film will open with a bang. This summer saw the release of some highly awaited first time releases along with sequels and prequels to some of Hollywood’s highest-grossing movies.

Social media with its massive audience reach is increasingly being used by film-makers to create this ‘buzz’. The role of movie critiques is slowly getting replaced by popular public opinion. But is this buzz sustainable? Does it translate into impressive revenue collections at the box-office?

Revenue and social buzz for the Top 10 movies as on 10th June 2011

Super 8 and X-Men: First Class which had the highest social media buzz also had the highest revenue collections as on 10th June 2011. The social media buzz over weekends when compared with the revenue collections gives an idea of whether there exists a definite correlation between the two: social media buzz and revenue collections.

 For all the ten movies, the revenue collections peaked on the day of release  and declined henceforth.

Post-Release Revenue Collections For The Top 10 movies For Three Weekends

Social Media Buzz Of Super 8

Day- Wise break up of conversations along with sentiments in June for Super 8

Post-Release Mentions And Sentiment For Two Weekends

 Even though the total buzz in the social media declined, the rate of decline of mentions with a positive sentiment was only 0.25%. This means that even though conversations over the social web about Super 8 had declined, they still carried a positive sentiment.

Post-Release revenues and social buzz on two weekends

The revenues along with the social buzz declined from one weekend to the following weekend, post-release of the movie.

Buzzing topical trends between 17th June to 19th June

Buzzing topical trends between 24th June to 26th June

Conversations between 17th June to 19th June suggest that since Father’s day was on 17th June, a lot of kids celebrated the occasion with their fathers by watching Super 8. The conversations also suggest that the movie was considered to be ideal for people who had grown up watching ‘The Goonies’ in the 80′s. The positive associations like awesome, amazing and fantastic are much bigger in the tag cloud compared to negative associations like terrible and sucks .

In the second weekend, there was chatter about the trailer, facebook and about the soundtrack which was missing in the first weekend.

Social Media Buzz Of X-Men: First Class

Day- Wise break up of conversations along with sentiments in June for X-Men: First Class

Post-Release Mentions And Sentiment For Two Weekends

The conversations in the social web about X-Men: First Class have declined from one week to the other. The rate of decline of negative mentions was 21% which means that, lesser negative opinions were being expressed about the movie, compared to the first week.

Post- release revenue and social buzz on two weekends

A trend similar to Super 8 was observed with the movie First Class, with the revenues declining along with the social buzz from one weekend to the following weekend.

Buzzing topical trends between 17th to 19th June

Buzzing topical trends between 24th June to 26th June

There were a lot of comparisons drawn between First Class and Green Lantern which was released on 17^th June 2011. Other movies being compared to First class included Thor and Super 8. Conversations suggested that the short cameo of Wolverine played by Hugh Jackman was widely appreciated by audiences. Words like awesome and amazing are larger than words like terrible which shows that conversations with a positive sentiment dominated chatter in the social web.

Between 24^th to 26^th June, there were conversations about the casting of the movie which includes actors like Michael Fassbender and James McAvoy. The character Magneto played by Michael Fassbender was discussed along with Wolverine whose absence was greatly felt by the audience. There were some comparisons made with X-Men Origins: Wolverine.

Social Media Buzz Of Hangover 2

Day- Wise break up of conversations along with sentiments in June for Hangover Part 2

Post-Release Mentions And Sentiment For Two Weekends

Even though the total buzz in the social media declined, the rate of decline of mentions with a positive sentiment was only 1.13%. This means that even though conversations over the social web about Hangover part II had declined, they still carried a positive sentiment.

Post- release revenue and social buzz on two weekends

The revenue along with the social buzz declined from one week to the next.

Buzzing topical trends between 17th June to 19th June

Buzzing topical trends between 24th June to 26th June

Between 17^th to 19^th June, conversations were taking place about the characters in the movie, mainly Bradly Cooper. Trends show that the audiences found the movie hilarious.

Between 24^th to 26^th June, there were mentions about Chow and monkey, two characters from the movie. Words like awesome and amazing show that conversations with a positive sentiment dominated chatter in the social web.

If social media was the reason for some movies becoming viral hits, it was also responsible for movies bombing at the box-office. As seen from the top three movies at the box-office, there is a definite correlation between the revenue collections and the post-release chatter in the social media. This makes it more important than ever before for studio houses and movie-makers to not just create buzz around the time of release but also to sustain this buzz post-release of their movies.