“Star Wars: The Force Awakens” received nearly universal praise on Twitter.
At a time when a movie’s success or failure can rise or fall based on how it is received in 140 characters, the “Star Wars” team can breathe easy. Only 1% of tweets about the seventh film in the science-fiction franchise were negative, according to Fizziology.
Not that Disney, the studio behind the film, was worried. “The Force Awakens” shattered records for a domestic opening this past weekend, racking up $247 million. Going forward, however, the social media response is critical because it signals how strong business will remain through the Christmas holidays.
“The word-of-mouth is extraordinary,” said Ben Carlson, co-creator of Fizziology. “Anyone who was on the fence, and I don’t think there’s a lot of fence sitters on this one, is going to get right off it.”
To get its results, the social media research firm recorded 1,517,824 tweets about the film from the time it began screening on Thursday through the end of Sunday. It found that 70% of comments for the picture were positive, with the other 29% a neutral reaction that was generally focusing on the film’s box office performance rather than its critical merits.
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“Usually some segment of the audience is disappointed,” said Carlson. “But there wasn’t much people didn’t like about this one. People loved all the characters, loved all the major plot points, and are trying desperately not to put any spoilers in their tweets.”
For a blockbuster of this size and popular appeal, negative reactions typically make up 5% of the social media chatter. Positive responses are lucky to come in at 50%, Carlson said.
The volume of discussion surrounding the film is also notable. Over the same period on its opening weekend, “Jurassic World” generated 1,214,088 tweets, while “Avengers: Age of Ultron” was the subject of 685,184 tweets, Fizziology found.
There was a clear gender breakdown in terms of who was watching and writing about “The Force Awakens,” according to data released by another social media service, Synthesio. The company found that men were responsible for 64% of all posts, and reports that 18 to 24 year olds were the most active posters followed by 25 to 34 year olds.
