UPDATED Twitter Watch: 'Toy Story' Continues Torrid Pace

Thursday Night Update: As of 9:30PM EST Toy Story 3 had grabbed 20,567 tweets and seems well set to top the 24,000 tweets mark. We are expecting great things from it this weekend and the buzz on Twitter surely mirrors this. Jonah Hex has also picked up its pace slightly from its early week returns, but even with 2,467 tweets so far for the day it is too late and too late and we are predicting that it will fail to hit the $10 million opening mark this weekend. 

Thursday Morning Update: Toy Story 3 stepped on the gas yesterday and raked in 17,346 tweets for the day for a market share of 32%, up from 12,228 tweets on Tuesday, and a market share of 26.2%. Its tweet ratings were almost identical to yesterdays (28.05% positive/1.98% negative) despite the large jump, another solid sign for the sentiment. This massive jump really is a testament both to the appeal to all quadrants by the film but also the marketing job by Pixar/Disney which has been stellar. By comparison Alice in Wonderland had 17,743 tweets on its Wednesday before release, which again puts the two films neck and neck with one day to go. Alice did have a massive Thursday in excess of 35,000 tweets, thanks in part to midnight showing business which Toy Story 3 will lag behind undoubtedly. However, even with a Thursday total of ~22,000 it really is well poised to overtake Alice by the end of the weekend thanks to the expected lower ratio of tweets to Box Office receipts. Expect a Friday of $35 million here, but strong legs over the weekend thanks to Father's Day and the massive appeal to young ones should allow it to reach $120 million by end of play Sunday.

What more can be said about Jonah Hex? It continued to lag woefully on Wednesday with 1,425 tweets and 2.6% market share, up from 1,221 tweets on Tuesday but the market share remained the same. For this type of film, and its target audience, to have a flat market share between 3 and 2 days out is pretty much lights out. Its not like it had a huge boost in tweets early in the week due to a premiere or something, the demand just isn't there. In terms of comparisons, Jennifer's Body had 1,081 tweets on its Wednesday before release, Ninja Assassin had 3,278, and Kick Ass had 3,123. Its positive percentage of tweets rose slightly to 18.11% while its negative percentage was 4.28. Still very low on the positive side and again an ominous sign. Expect a Friday of $3.75 million and $9 million over the full weekend.

Top 10 Upcoming Movies for Wednesday June 16th 

Check back later today for the afternoon update and also Friday to see the final Thursday numbers analysis and the final weekend predictions. Follow @AlexBOXOFFICE on Twitter for additional updates.

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