Yesterday, The Hollywood Reporter, um, reported that the web site BoxOffice.com was on the verge of releasing an exclusive new study that would blow our minds. With Brad Pitt’s latest film, Moneyball, set to release tomorrow, BoxOffice.com was going to tell us late yesterday that the film is tracking nearly twice as well as The Social Network did.

Unfortunately, the exclusive study has still not been released, but you simply can’t deny the site’s rock solid statistics.

BoxOffice.com editor Phil Contrino tells me that the site has been tracking Facebook and Twitter activity since May 2010, and based its conclusions — which he says are statistically significant — on stats gathered from monitoring the two sites over the weekend before the films opened. On Facebook, The Social Network received 34,645 “likes” within that period, whereas Moneyball received 64,073. On Twitter, meanwhile, the former was the subject of 4,120 Tweets, whereas the latter was mentioned in 5,264.

Look, I’m no expert in movie tracking by any means, but it seems like predicting a movie’s success based on how many people liked it on Facebook or mentioned it on Twitter is like looking out a window and guessing the temperature. People mention all sorts of crazy sh*t on Twitter, and only 10% of it is spelled right. I’d be more concerned that people were trying to buy tickets for “Mun3bal.”

But if we really want to play the prediction game, I’d say a good indicator would be that 8 of Pitt’s last 13 movies have grossed more than $100 million and Moneyball is about baseball, stars Brad Pitt and Jonah Hill, has been promoted religiously by Sony, and stars Brad Pitt. Predicting that it will be a success is too easy. Unless they change the name to Babel 2.

Despite being nearly universally-reviled as shrill, self-righteous, and kunty, lots of people, including myself, rely on Nikki Finke’s website for her obnoxious scoops and bitchy insight into industry trends, delivered with her trademark headline, “TOLDJA.” Well now Nikki is hoping she can turn that stockpile of resigned acceptance into a Facebook game in which people clamor to be immersed in a virtual world based on her website. It saddens me to report that it is not called “C*ntville.” Oh hey there, obvious joke, I was hoping you’d show up.

You can see the full press release after the jump, but here’s the condensed version:

True to Deadline.com’s mission to report on the inner workings of the entertainment business, this new Facebook game allows players to experience what it really takes to make it in Hollywood. The ‘Deadline Hollywood Game’ is designed for wannabes and showbiz moguls. It also becomes the first game of its kind to incorporate real-time breaking news that influences gameplay.

“True to our mission of reporting stuff, this is a computer game.”

The ‘Deadline Hollywood Game’ introduces the real Hollywood where power, relationships, and influence are as important as money (and sometimes more so). The game employs the same mixture of street smarts and dumb luck to make it in The Industry by allowing players to choose one of several career paths – actor, screenwriter, producer, director, agent, studio executive – leading to success or ruin.

Yep, they capitalized “The Industry.”  “Donald, don’t say ‘industry…’”

The ‘Deadline Hollywood Game’ will launch this summer with invitation-only play by select showbiz insiders. Facebook users can pre-register at http://www.deadline.com/deadline-hollywood-facebook-game/ to be among the first people to know when the game goes live and to be entered to win a Hollywood Mogul Swag Bag. Additionally, 40 runners-up will win a pair of movie tickets courtesy of Hollywood Movie Money.

Along the way, they’ll find that the ‘Deadline Hollywood Game’ utilizes the same pithy intel and snark about The Industry as the website, with quips like “If you want to make it in Hollywood, move to New York” and “If you want to get a screenplay made, write a novel.” [Deadline]

So… did anyone else just puke? Much like hanging with the characters in Entourage or listening to techno in the car, I can’t even imagine having to hang out with the kind of person who would want to play this game, let alone actually playing it.
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Don’t think this means I’m going to start posting on weekends, but I thought this was funny. In fact, I thought it was REALLY funny. It was so funny, it was scary. (As Stephenie Meyer might say).  Okay, carry on. BRB TTYL lol kthanxbai. xoxoxo ({}) ~~~~~~~~

(that last emoticon was supposed to be a queef, in case that was unclear)

[via Lamebook]

They're decent rowers, but their best event is the bicycle built for two

In late 2003, twin Harvard rowers Cameron and Tyler Winklevoss (played by Armie Hammer in The Social Network) hired Mark Zuckerberg to create HarvardConnection, which was basically envisioned as a dating site for Harvard students.  Zuckerberg did some work for them, then basically blew them off to start TheFacebook in early 2004, and the rest is history.  Despite the fact that the idea of Facebook wasn’t any different than Friendster or Myspace and succeeded mainly because the design just worked better, and that Facebook was different than the Winklevoss Twins’ original idea for Harvard Connection, the Winklevoss Twins sued Zuckerberg. In 2008, they received a settlement that included $20 million in cash (hopefully in a briefcase handcuffed to someone’s wrist) and partial ownership of Facebook, now worth $140 million.  Because $160 million for doing essentially nothing wasn’t enough, they appealed the settlement, claiming they’d been misled about the value of the company, and that the settlement was worth less than they had agreed to.  Yesterday, a judge threw out their appeal, telling them to take their ill-begotten money and go row a boat.

The twins had alleged they were misled about Facebook’s value when they agreed to settle their lawsuit that claimed Zuckerberg stole their idea to launch Facebook.
“At some point, litigation must come to an end,” federal appeals court chief justice Alex Kozinksi wrote for the unanimous three-judge panel “That point has now been reached.”
The twins alleged they were misled into believing the company was worth $35.90 a share because of an investment by Microsoft Corp. But they argued that the company later valued the company at $8.88 for tax purposes. The twins argue they would have demanded more stock in the company based on the lower valuation.
Kozinski said the twins were “sophisticated parties” when they agreed to the settlement during a mediation meeting.
“They brought half-a-dozen lawyers to the mediation,” Kozinksi wrote.
Facebook said Monday it was pleased by the ruling. Lawyers for the Winklevoss twins said they are reviewing the decision and have not decided on their next step. The twins could ask the Supreme Court to consider the case. [Yahoo]

Shouldn’t they also have to pay back the money for wasting everyone’s time?  If just having an idea without putting in the effort to actually execute it was worth money, every stoner I know would be a billionaire.  I hate these guys, and it’s not just because they went to Harvard, have a false sense of entitlement, row crew, wear those ugly Oakley glasses, are named “Winklevoss”, have stupid hair and vulgar nipples, and… sorry, I’m blind with rage, I forgot where I was going with this.  Is it just me, or do all crew rowers remind you of a Three Stooges bit without the sense of irony?  Jesus these guys are white. If they had played “Whitey” in a blacksploitation movie people would’ve called it over the top.

Before The Social Network came out, Facebook founder Mark Zuckerberg had vowed never to see it, dismissing it as a work of fiction and even going so far as to remove The West Wing from his favorite TV shows after he heard it was Social Net screenwriter Aaron Sorkin’s show.  But contrary to the movie, he’s not actually a super villain who lives in the penthouse of a clock tower with a hairless cat, he’s just a 20-something dude.  And what 20-something dude could resist seeing it if David Fincher made a movie out of his life?  Zuckerberg recently admitted to USWeekly that he’d taken his employees to a screening party, where they drank apple martinis like Justin Timberlake did in the movie.

Zuckerberg was asked about the difference between the movie and what he experienced while creating Facebook. “Where do you want to start?” he asked. Every shirt and fleece worn by the actor (Jesse Eisenberg) who played him was one he had actually worn, Zuckerberg said. The movie got a lot of stuff wrong and random details right, he said.
Reviewing the film thematically, Zuckerberg said it featured a girl who was not part of his real life. In the movie she dumped him, which, he joked, happened to him often. “They framed it as if I wanted to get girls or into some social institution,” Zuckerberg said. “I’ve been dating the same girl since before Facebook.” He concluded that the filmmakers “can’t wrap their head around the idea that someone might build something because they like building things.” [Yahoo]

I respect that Sorkin was able to write an entertaining movie about these dorks, but the fact that he still seems to think he was blowing the lid off a ring of woman-hating megalomaniacs makes him sound like a class-A Hollywood fart huffer.  Professor Appletini here is supposed to be a misogynist?  If I was Mark Zuckerberg, I’d be telling people “People can’t wrap their head around the idea that someone might build something because they like being KNEE-DEEP IN BUSTY TEENS!”  Then I’d flick my tongue at the interviewer like Gene Simmons and ride off on a high-speed cigarette boat, doing that “suck it” thing in between hip thrusts.  But fast cars and fast sluts are kind of my thing.