'Tower Heist' And 'Harold & Kumar' Battle For Social Media Buzz

For the past few days, following an early Times Square screening, the MTV Newsroom has been buzzing about "A Very Harold & Kumar 3D Christmas." "Can you believe it was actually damn funny?" one movie nerd would say to another. "I mean, the last one stunk." That's the buzz in here. And out there too, a fact that our friends at NextMovie have made abundantly clear with their new MovieTracker, a cool application boasting a fancy-schmancy algorithm that measures what people are saying on Twitter and Facebook and lets us know which movies people are psyched about. Think of it like a Billboard music chart, but instead of tracking album sales, it tracks Internet movie buzz in real time. As of this writing, "Harold & Kumar" has risen to the #2 slot, with loads of positive tweets coming in. The public seems to be in agreement with star John Cho, who told MTV News recently of his onscreen partnership with Kal Penn, "We are without a doubt the best Korean-Indian stoner comedy duo in cinematic history." It's going to be a very comedy-centric weekend at the multiplex, which is honestly a bit confounding from a programming standpoint. Yes, the hard-R "Harold & Kumar" and the PG-13 "Tower Heist" are targeting different moviegoers, but there's undoubtedly some overlap between those two audiences. And "Tower Heist" is going to come out on top, even if it's currently trending one notch below "Harold & Kumar" on the MovieTracker. (Last week's big winner, "Paranormal Activity 3," was planted at #1 at press time.) Expect "Tower Heist," starring Ben Stiller and Eddie Murphy, to reel in around $30 million this weekend. "Harold & Kumar" will probably fall shy of the $20 million mark. Will the MovieTracker adjust to reflect these box-office predictions? Keep checking back to see what's up and what's down, what's buzzing and what's bombing all weekend long. Check out everything we've got on "A Very Harold & Kumar 3D Christmas" and "Tower Heist." For breaking news, celebrity columns, humor and more — updated around the clock — visit MTVMoviesBlog.com. Ben Stiller and Gabourey Sidibe in "Tower Heist" Photo: Universal Pictures