Update below.
The pro-life movie Unplanned surprised at the box office its opening weekend, taking 5th place with $6.1 million. That didn’t stop Twitter from attacking the film twice in one weekend, however.
The movie’s Twitter account was briefly suspended on Saturday, mere hours after its release on Friday. On Sunday, the account seems to have mysteriously lost 99,000 of its 100,000 followers.
“Wow!!! 100K Followers,” the Unplanned account tweeted on Sunday afternoon. “Thanks to everyone who has helped us to achieve this milestone. When [Twitter] suspended our account you came together as a strong voice. We are so very grateful for the enormous support you’ve show at the box office.”
Wow!!! 100K Followers
Thanks to everyone who has helped us to achieve this milestone. When @Twitter suspended our account you came together as a strong voice. We are so very grateful for the enormous support you've show at the box office. #Unplannedreaction#unplannedmovie pic.twitter.com/vy74gUInGy— UnplannedMovie (@UnplannedMovie) March 31, 2019
As of Sunday evening, the account had dropped to 151 followers.
WTH just happened with the @UnplannedMovie account?
They just lost all their followers and following… and their verified check? pic.twitter.com/YG7UR9JdJe
— Tim Young (@TimRunsHisMouth) April 1, 2019
The number of followers increased to 1,402, but that still falls far short of the film’s 100,000 followers. PJ Media asked Twitter for an explanation.
Hey @Twitter, @TwitterSupport, @Jack, how did @UnplannedMovie lose 99K followers on Twitter in a matter of hours? You briefly suspended this account yesterday, and now most of their followers disappear. Please explain. pic.twitter.com/JhZIpMpzsb
— Tyler O'Neil (@Tyler2ONeil) April 1, 2019
According to Adrienne Royer, Twitter forces users to “unfollow” the account. If a user clicks the “follow” button, it turns blue, saying the user is “following” the account, but as soon as the page is refreshed, the user is no longer following the account.
You can't follow them. Click on the button. It turns blue. Refresh and you've unfollowed. I've watched the blue button turn white at least 10 times.
— Adrienne (@AdrienneRoyer) April 1, 2019
I attempted to follow the page, but the same thing happened to me.
Despite the Twitter suspension and sudden mysterious loss of followers, Unplanned racked up more than $6.1 million at the box office, despite being predicted to take in only $2-3 million. Even more impressive, the film only played on 1,060 screens, earning an average of $5,770 per screen.
On Sunday, the film announced that its distributor, Pure Flix, will add an additional 600 screens for a count of 1,700 screens next week.
The movie also earned an A+ rating from CinemaScore, and it has a 93 percent positive rating on RottenTomatoes.
“We are very happy for the success of this film,” Pure Flix CEO Michael Scott said in a statement. “To bring the story of Abby Johnson to audiences and have them show up in such large numbers shows how the topic of abortion is so important to bring to audiences. We hope that those on both sides of the debate will see Unplanned and begin to have their own dialogue. This film can be that spark to bring more hearts and minds to understanding the value of life.”
Ashely Bratcher played Abby Johnson, a former Planned Parenthood abortion clinic director who resigned to join the pro-life movement. Bratcher herself was almost aborted — her mother had scheduled an abortion but changed her mind at the last minute.
Neither Twitter nor its CEO, Jack Dorsey, nor Bratcher returned PJ Media’s requests for comment by press time.
Update 11:24 p.m.: When Unplanned appealed the “suspension,” Twitter supposedly lifted it. However, I still am unable to “follow” the film’s Twitter account.
People are once again experiencing @Twitter shenanigans…
We finally got a response as to our suspension.#Unplanned#Unplanned reactionhttps://t.co/KgMJ8mdpVK pic.twitter.com/jFAqf3xMRM— UnplannedMovie (@UnplannedMovie) April 1, 2019
Armani Salado, the youngest congressional candidate in the 2020 race, tweeted a video of his failed attempts to “follow” the account.
https://twitter.com/salado4congress/status/1112554955498496001
Update 11:35 p.m.: While the Twitter account has jumped up to 86.9K followers, when users click on the number, they see the message “Unplanned Movie doesn’t have any followers yet.”
UPDATE:
Although @UnplannedMovie seems to have attracted fully 61K new followers since @Twitter mysteriously reduced them from 100K to under 100, when I clicked o on #Unplanned's follower count, #Twitter reported "@unplannedmovie doesn't have any followers…." pic.twitter.com/SGnccHbWwk— Stephen Herreid (@StephenHerreid) April 1, 2019
Yeah, @Twitter is still screwing with @UnplannedMovie. @StephenHerreid pointed this out, and I can confirm: while Twitter SAYS Unplanned has 86.9K followers, it won't list any of them… Instead, it says Unplanned "doesn't have any followers yet." I still can't follow… pic.twitter.com/sHU5bCT7ai
— Tyler O'Neil (@Tyler2ONeil) April 1, 2019
Update 9:20 a.m. Monday: Finally the glitch appears to have been fixed. Now Unplanned is up to 226K followers — twice as many as it had before the mysterious Twitter attack.
Finally, it seems @Twitter and @Jack have stopped their ridiculous attacks against @UnplannedMovie, which now has 226K followers. I’m finally allowed to follow it. Let’s not get complacent, though. Who knows what Twitter will do next? pic.twitter.com/LsOn9B9tD7
— Tyler O'Neil (@Tyler2ONeil) April 1, 2019
The account claims “Unplanned” should be trending on Twitter but is not.
#Update:
200K followers in 36 hours
100K followers since mid day
15K impressions a min.
Account wronly suspended and now "reset"
A retweet from @DonaldJTrumpJr and yet…[ #UNPLANNED MOVIE STILL NOT #Trending ]#MicDropIn5Words pic.twitter.com/c8MIJx86Xw
— UnplannedMovie (@UnplannedMovie) April 1, 2019
Follow Tyler O’Neil, the author of this article, on Twitter at @Tyler2ONeil.
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