‘The Revenant’ Fans Riled Up Online, Edge Out James Bond
Each week Variety publishes ListenFirst Digital Audience Ratings (DAR) – Film, a measurement of fan engagement across all the major digital platforms as it relates to film (see the TV version here). Provided by ListenFirst Media, DAR – Film measures what entertainment content is resonating most across Facebook, Google+, Instagram, Tumblr, Twitter, YouTube and Wikipedia combined. For more on the methodology behind DAR, scroll to the bottom of the article.
 Digital Audience Ratings (DAR) – Film | ||||||
Weekly Top 5 | Wednesday Sep 30, 2015 – Tuesday Oct 6, 2015 | |||||
RANK | LAST WEEK | FILM | RATING(000) | |||
1 |  | – |  | 5,491 |  | |
2 | | – |  | 2,815 | ||
3 |  | 1 |  | 3,248 | ||
4 | | – |  | 2,524 | ||
5 | | 4 |  | 2,206 | ||
– |
Key | |
 | First time on the chart |
| Pinnacle Rank |
– |
Trending | Wednesday Sep 30, 2015 – Tuesday Oct 6, 2015 | ||||
FILM | RATING(000) | % CHANGE | |||
 | 193 | +2,798% | |||
 | Scouts Guide to the Zombie Apocalypse | 639 | +2,461% | ||
| The Revenant | 5,491 | +1,400% | ||
Insights:
Leonardo DiCaprio and Daniel Craig went head-to-head with new trailers released this week for both “The Revenant” and “Spectre” on Friday (10/2). The strength of “The Revenant” on YouTube allowed the January release to lead the week overall, but “Spectre” was stronger on Facebook, Twitter and Wikipedia thanks to a secondary boost from Global James Bond Day.
Despite a 25% slow in digital engagement and a 30% drop at the box office, “Hotel Transylvania 2” remained within the top 5 for the third week in a row, leaving no vacancy on the leaderboard. Week over week the film’s momentum has remained the strongest on YouTube. A new video was uploaded this week celebrating the film’s ranking as the #1 Movie in America, but the majority of new views were of pre-existing content.
Sony’s “Goosebumps” also remained on the leaderboard after a surge in activity on Instagram, where engagement more than doubled. Followers flocked to a video of the Werewolf of Fever Swamp, which is now the #1 post of the campaign. With the film’s 10/16 release approaching and secondary Halloween push close behind, “Goosebumps” may become a fixture on the leaderboard.
Jason Klein is the Co-Founder and Co-CEO of ListenFirst Media, a data and analytics company providing insights for brands. ListenFirst aggregates data streams from a wide range of digital, social, and traditional marketing sources to help brands optimize business performance.
Methodology:
ListenFirst Digital Audience Ratings (DAR) – Film are a raw aggregate of daily engagements based on owned, earned and organic consumer behavior on Facebook, Google+, Instagram, Tumblr, Twitter, Wikipedia and YouTube. These engagements encompass metrics pertaining to audience growth, page/profile views, page-level and post-level interactions, hashtag volume and Wikipedia page views for all film pages (which provides a proxy for organic search volume).
Organic conversation volume is calculated based on the use of official hashtags, as well as those hashtags submitted directly from distributors. Only hashtags where conversation can be isolated to a specific film are included in the rating.
The Variety Weekly Top 5 and Trending leaderboards for film represent the 7-day (Wednesday – Tuesday) sum total of DAR for all US Domestic Films that have been publicly announced and slated for a commercial theatrical release. Films are rated daily from initial public announcement through 4 weeks post home entertainment street date. Festival films and other films not slated for a commercial theatrical release are excluded from this ranking cohort but available to be rated directly by ListenFirst Media.
The Trending leaderboard surfaces the three films that tracked the largest relative growth in DAR (from the previous 7-day measurement period), and are also in the top 25% based on absolute DAR.
ListenFirst monitors the official digital account owned by the film on each aforementioned platform (except for Wikipedia, where the title-specific profile is considered official). Only the U.S. version of a film’s digital presence is monitored; for platforms that support regional profiles like Facebook, the “Global” profile is considered the U.S. profile. Only profiles that can be attributed to the specific film contribute to the rating (i.e. engagements that happen on the profile facebook.com/ArgoMovie are tracked, while engagements that happen on facebook.com/WarnerBrosPictures are not). For YouTube, in addition to any film-specific presence, content related to the film in question that originated on the parent company’s official YouTube channel is considered.
For other questions pertaining to methodology, contact ListenFirst Media.
Related stories
'Goosebumps' Premiere: Jack Black Channels R.L. Stine, Predicts Oscar Gold for Himself
Digital Audience Ratings: Strong Showing for Sony as Family Favorites Top the Week
Get more from Variety and Variety411: Follow us on Twitter, Facebook, Newsletter
