Eight months ago I wrote a blog post about how social media had the potential to help one film become the blockbuster movie of 2014. The movie? X-Men: Days of Future Past. And for the past eight months millions have been on the rollercoaster ride of a lifetime that are X-Men director Bryan Singer’s tweets.

Bryan Singer is no stranger to Twitter. In an interview with the Huffington Post, Singer explains why he chose Twitter to connect with his fans:

“I decided that the next time I got myself involved in a movie that had a huge amount of attention already that I would use Twitter. As a way of connecting with fans, principally. And also as a way of clearing up misunderstandings so that people know. You know, they may hear that an actor is cast or hear somebody is going to be in it, but until I say it’s so, that’s the confirmation.”

And so far, the results have paid off for Singer and parent X-Men owner Fox Studios.

Far removed from even showing an actual trailer through traditional media, Singer and Fox Studios went where everyone is – social media. And over the course of eight months, we’ve seen a bevy of behind-the-scenes photo tweets from Singer, mini-teasers on Instagram from the film’s official account, a viral video about the antagonist’s company and lastly, a very well thought out marketing idea titled The Bent Bullet that suggests Magneto (one of the film’s characters) was the individual who assassinated President John F. Kennedy.

And all of this buzz was for a film that had yet to release a single action-packed trailer and promoting solely through social media. What are critics saying? Forbes contributor Scott Mendelson agrees that the X-Men mini-teasers show the future of marketing:

“In this age of saturation-level marketing often months in advance, where copious trailers are followed by copious television spots and a deluge of online clips, Fox must be and should be commended for holding back.”

While that is great praise from a marketing standpoint, the other side of the coin asks how effective has the film’s social media marketing strategies resonated with moviegoers? Popular movie/TV database Rotten Tomatoes has it’s audience’s ‘want to see’ percentage at one hundred percent!

Social media has played a huge role in the marketing of X-Men: Days of Future Past. It not only gave fans a real-time look at how the film was being made, but the real win is the word-of-mouth marketing that was spawned without the help of traditional media – who says social media doesn’t work?!

The film is now in post-production and opens in theaters on May 23, 2014. Will it become the blockbuster film of 2014? I’ll let its newly action-packed trailer do the talking…