In an article posted by Variety.com it appears that now more than ever – and even more so for the future – movie audiences in the United States rely more on the internet for getting movie reviews, info, and social opinion than anywhere else.

Many of you might consider this conclusion to be confirmation of a suspicion you already had, but for marketing executives it will no doubt prove to be quite useful. The article breaks down the survey, which was conducted by surveying 1,547 moderate-to-heavy moviegoers over eight days in July, with an additional 2,305 questioned by phone or online during the entire month of July. Nielsen NRG managed the research fieldwork, with AOL, Facebook, Fandango, Google, Microsoft, MovieTickets.com and Yahoo agreeing to be enlisted to supply data for the study.

One interesting conclusion made in the article pertains to this website in particular (being that we are of course a movie-related website).

“Most films are now considered critic-proof, especially among the younger set, with 84% of moviegoers saying, ‘When they make up their mind to see a movie, it doesn’t matter what the critics say about it.’

It may depend on who’s giving them the thumbs up or down, however.

Of those surveyed, 75% said they trust a friend’s opinion more than a movie critic; 80% said they were more likely to see a movie after hearing a positive review from other moviegoers, while only 67% said a thumbs up from a professional critic had the same weight.

Yet only 40% said negative reviews from their peers would dissuade them from seeing a movie, while an even lower 28% would be kept from theaters because of a critic’s opinion, meaning that at the end of the day, negative word of mouth doesn’t have as much influence.” – Variety

Here at Movie-Thoughts.com, we are happy to give our recommendations and occasional warnings of certain movies – upon request or otherwise – but as we’ve been trying to make clear we aim to simply be a place that attracts and embraces sincere thinking about everything movie-related. If you the reader consider us a viable source for reliable movie evaluations, great! But if not, tell us why. We want to hear from you!