Word of mouth

This article in today's Los Angeles Times is worth perusing. It's on the buzz that some films get, and some films don't... This paragraph regarding Monster House is telling:

The wrong kind of word of mouth can be devastating. When Sony released Monster House earlier this summer, the animated movie collected some of the season's best reviews and opened to a respectable $22.2 million. But in its second weekend, the film slipped nearly 48%. Sony believes the sharp drop-off was largely attributable to parents' telling other parents that Monster House was too intesne for small children. Thanks to that don't-dare-take-your-six-year-old advice, the film collapsed more than 40% the next three weekends, and was soon history.

A friend of mine thought that Monster House would have been better released around Halloween, but maybe Moms wouldn't have taken the kiddies in October either...