This weekend sees two major openings at the movies: In Time, a futuristic action thriller with Justin Timberlake, and Anonymous, the conspiracy theory about who really wrote Shakespeare’s works. All week long the two have run pretty much neck and neck on the Anticipation Index, Vulture’s scientific tool for tracking buzz based on Twitter and blog activity, and today they wrap up their run ranked ninth and eleventh, respectively. But it’s interesting to see how both have been brought to nearly the same place by two entirely different types of web chatter.
Meanwhile, over at Anonymous, nobody’s talking about star Rhys Ifans, and everyone’s talking ‘bout Shakespeare. If director Roland Emmerich thought this movie would get up the collective dander of the nation’s English majors, then well played! Most of the online buzz has been in response to angry articles about the film’s very premise, with many retweets of last week’s New York Times Magazine feature by former Shakespeare professor Stephen Marche, in which he wrote, “If you take Anonymous as just a movie, it may not even be that bad. I couldn’t possibly judge, because I was apoplectically stuttering about the inconsistencies.” Whether or not people are actually reading all of this stuff is impossible to say, but hey, at least they’re talking about it, right? As @Robo_Kop1 says, “Would not mind seeing ‘Anonymous’ tonight! #Shakespeare.” Whether Shakespeare’s modern-day devotees agree with the film or not, at least they can be proud that the Bard has finally gotten his own hashtag.
