I think the general consensus seems to be that
300 is the movie we all thought
Snakes on a Plane would be. By that I mean, a flick that has such a HUGE amount of Internet buzz that opens to a massive number that bulldozers all the studio's previous estimates. Harry over at
AICN has done his research. He claims that the Warner Brothers secret polls that were held after some screenings revealed that 60% chose to see the movie after what they had heard over the Internet. The figure increases to 68% when polled among Imax attendees. Why this is such a big news story is that for years the Internet has been seen as only reaching to a small % of the movie-going public. I would still say that was true....tv and billboard advertising, newspaper critics and theatrical trailers are clearly still the king BUT this does show that the Internet CAN be significant and may just show subtle signs of the tide changing. I know for a fact that the guys over at Warner Brothers working on
Batman checked sites like
Batman-on-Film during production to see what their latest take on things were. Just look at
Rob Zombie and his
Halloween script and how all that negativity pissed him off to no-end, which will probably make him change some things in the finished movie. It was only the other day that I read about
Jon Favreau's comments about how he enjoyed the fact that the rumour of
Terrence Howard as the new
Iron Man got leaked, so he could read the Internet reaction as to see if the actor would fit the role, as of course Howard's role in the movie is Jim Rhodes... who eventually takes on the mantle of Iron Man. If the fan reaction had been poor, perhaps Favreau would have had second thoughts about it? With the amount of directors keeping regulary updated blogs and video diaries during a movie's production, it's clear that they believe the Internet can make a difference to their film's success. Maybe us "bloggers" updating movie sites and voicing our opinions in our PJ's, may have a bigger voice than we originally imagined. source -
aicn