Twitter: New Hollywood Kingmaker?

Over at All Things Digital, Media Matters columnist Peter Kafka wonders if there’s something to the meme that microblogging service Twitter fueled the big box-office weekend for Quentin Tarantino’s “Inglourious Basterds.”

The Nazi revenge flick starring Brad Pitt pulled in $37 million over the weekend, exceeding Tinseltown predictions by at least $10 million.

Says Kafka:

In the old days, you’d simply chalk up the difference to the fact that the Hollywood prognostication machine sometimes gets things wrong. But now when that happens, the impulse is to blame or praise Twitter. The theory: Audiences go to see the movie on Friday, then quickly Tweet their 140-character reviews to their pals. That either keeps moviegoers away for the rest of the weekend or makes them flock to the theaters.

While Kafka remains open-minded about the Twitter theory, he points out that hard metrics supporting it are scarce. For example, though research service Trendrr reported a huge surge in tweets per day about the movie from Aug. 21-23, it takes a certain leap of faith to assume this short-term tweet trend put more customers in the theaters.

Is there any doubt that Twitter posts can prompt some people to see certain movies? Of course not. But we’re a long way from being able to accurately measure Twitter’s clout in Hollywood.

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