'Tarzan' Has Surprisingly Solid Weekend Despite Weak Reviews And Social Chatter

Time Warner Inc (NYSE: TWX) shareholders can breathe a sigh of relief this week after Warner Bros' “The Legend of Tarzan” beat analyst expectations and delivered a solid opening weekend at the box office.

“Tarzan” brought in an estimated $38.1 million this weekend, well ahead of analyst expectations that it would be a $20–25 million flop.

Despite poor critical reviews and a leading actor (Alexander Skarsgard) without a track record of box office draws, “Tarzan” came in a solid second place over the weekend behind Walt Disney Co (NYSE: DIS)'s hit “Finding Dory” and ahead of Comcast Corporation (NASDAQ: CMCA)’s “The Purge: Election Year.”

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Despite the relatively strong performance during opening weekend, “Tarzan” still has a long way to go to break even on its reported $180 million budget.

Data from TickerTags prior to the release of “Tarzan” indicated that the movie would have an uphill battle at the box office.

TickerTags monitors social media sites to identify trends by searching for words and phrases that appear together in social media content, such as tweets.

In the week leading up to its premiere, organic social mentions of “Tarzan” were 55 percent lower than the average daily mentions of the movie “Warcraft” the week leading up to its premiere and 10 percent lower than mentions of “London Has Fallen” the week of its release. Both moves ultimately ended up major box office flops.

Disclosure: The author holds no position in the stocks mentioned.