“A bad film is a bad film,” – Hollywood executive.
This time last year, Hollywood was all over Twitter as the phenomenon to make or break a film. Reportedly, the much-anticipated Sacha Baron Cohen follow-up flick to the outrageously successful “Borat” – “Bruno” – tanked at the box office after opening weekend Twitter users saw it and tweeted that it, in 6 characters or less, “sucked.”
It was also believed that “The Blind Side”, which won an Academy Award for star Sandra Bullock got a 25% box office boost thanks to the Twitterati tweeting that it was a “must see”.
But the word in Hollywood now is that Twitter alone does not help (or hurt) a film. It is all forms of social media that feed into the universal dialog and one very personal form in particular, the text message, that ultimately gets the word out among friends that “a bad film is a bad film.” Imagine the $12.50 that could have been saved if a trusted friend had texted you while you waited in line to see “Bruno” with a simple “Sux”.
Source: The Wrap: “The Twitter Effect Isn’t What Hollywood Thought.”
Kathy Drasky regularly writes about online culture. Her marketing and communications work with the ANZA Technology Network, Advance Global Australians and with various Australians and Australian enterprises has led to at least a dozen trips Down Under.
An accomplished digital photographer, her photos have appeared in 7×7 Magazine, the San Francisco Chronicle and Google Schmap.
