A new Twitter study proves that acting talent doesn't even matter.
Several months ago, casting directors revealed that acting talent does not matter.
Several famous casting directors said that having a Twitter account with millions of followers was more important than an actor who has attended dozens of acting classes, completed several degrees in theater, and has amazing acting abilities.
“It's a powerful story to tell: Having your cast on Twitter does boost the overall conversation about your movie.”
And a new study by Twitter proves that box office hit movies all featured actors who were extremely active on social media.
Twitter has teamed with analytics firm Crimson Hexagon to analyze tweets for 33 movies in 2015, spanning each movie's lifecycle from trailer release to post-production. The movies including 14 “over-performoers” which had an average box-office-to-budget ratio of 2.5, and 18 “under-performers,” with a box office/budget ration of 0.5.
According to the study here are the key findings:
- Box Office hit movies had 150% more posts on twitter than the movies that bombed.
- Movies that had talent active on Twitter saw a 326% boost in average daily conversations about the motion pictures, in comparison to actors who did not have Twitter.
- Twitter was also able to predict how well a movie was going to do in the box office by measuring the positive sentiment.
“It's a powerful story to tell: Having your cast on Twitter does boost the overall conversation about your movie,” said Rachel Dodes, head of film partnerships for Twitter.
Twitter did not disclose the list of 33 movies, but said Amy Schumer's Trainwreck and Straight Outta Compton were among the list of box-office hit movies. The fact that Lebron James tweeted about the movie to his nearly 30 million followers helped boost the box-office earnings for the movie.
While the study does imply that casting actors who are active on Twitter can yield bigger box office results, Dodes acknowledged that there's no real way to prove there's a causal link. “There are a whole host of reasons contributing to box office results, and we'd hesitate to suggest causality,” she said.
In addition, Twitter's study excluded movies with budgets over $100 million. That's because blockbusters spend a lot of money on marketing, and that makes the study difficult to do. “Word of mouth becomes more important for lower-budget movies,” she said.
Ultimately, casting actors and other talent who are active on social media is a good idea. “If you were considering hiring actors, you would want to watch their previous work, talk to their agents, speak to people they've worked with and get an impression of them,” said Matthew Marolda, chief analytics officer at Legendary Pictures. “Why wouldn't you also analyze their presence on Twitter to learn how people discuss them and the tone and tenor of the conversation around them, and then assess whether they fit with the kind of film we're considering?”
