Screen Engine and TheWrap’s ScreenShare tracker quantifies the entertainment titles people are discussing most during a given week. For Sept. 12-18, NFL Football held the top position with 4.6% of mentions, as Week 1 of the regular season ended and Week 2 began on Sept. 17.
Close behind, Spider-Man: Brand New Day took 4.4% after becoming the highest-grossing domestic release in history in 47 days. The chart is not a box office ledger; it is an attention share metric, useful for spotting where conversation is gathering before and after release.
Release momentum moved the top five
Resident Evil climbed into fifth at 3.2% in the same week Zach Cregger’s reboot opened on Sept. 18 to $60 million, the largest debut in franchise history. That movement is the kind of pre-release signal media teams should note: chatter intensified just before the film converted attention into ticket sales.
Other titles in the Top 10 show how different formats drive mention share:
- NFL Football (4.6%) led on live sports cadence.
- Spider-Man: Brand New Day (4.4%) rode a domestic box office record.
- Grand Theft Auto VI (4.1%) held attention ahead of its Nov. 19 launch.
- Avengers: Doomsday (3.2%) followed news that presales had already cleared $50 million three months before Dec. 18.
- Resident Evil (3.2%) surged before a record opening.
Streaming also left a mark. Prime Video’s Reacher rose to 2.6% as the Season 4 finale arrived Sept. 16 along with the full first season of spinoff Neagley. HBO’s Lanterns entered the Top 10 at 1.6% as its weekly run continued toward an Oct. 4 finale.
What the numbers mean for planners
Mentions are a lead indicator, not proof of demand. A high share can come from a marketing push, a release date or a news cycle. Practical Magic 2 slid to 2.3% after its opening weekend, a reminder that some titles generate attention that fades quickly.
Media planners and entertainment marketers should therefore read the chart directionally. Compare pre-release buzz against actual opening, presales or viewership before moving spend. A surge like Resident Evil’s is most useful when it correlates with downstream performance.
Elsewhere in the chart, Avengers Endgame: Encore edged up to 1.5% ahead of a Sept. 25 re-release, and The Odyssey rounded out the Top 10 at 1.4% despite a weekly decline, having passed Jurassic World to become Universal’s highest-grossing release at roughly $1.68 billion worldwide.
Use the direction, not just the rank
For ScreenStat readers, the actionable takeaway is to monitor week-over-week movement. Rank position matters less than whether a title is gaining while others are sliding. ScreenShare’s value is in pairing that movement with actual business metrics—presales, openings, ratings—before drawing conclusions.
Source: TheWrap
