The Official MovieSet Blog
Twilight watch: $65 M opening weekend possible
Thursday, November 20, 2008
For a guy that’s not stoked about the impending release of Twilight I sure like to talk about it. Still, I think that I have a good reason and that’s because all signs point to Twilight being the next big thing for Hollywood. Box office analysts began the week by pegging the possible opening weekend box office for Twilight at around $30-35 million. By mid-week those estimates were being revised to $40-45 as word got out that 2,000 shows of the film has already sold out, 600 of which are midnight screenings happening tonight. And now the latest estimates have been revised again: Twilight could make $65 million dollars this coming weekend. That’s big news for a number of reasons.
First, there’s the obvious one: it’s the launch of a new film franchise. Warner Bros. Harry Potter film series has so far been the out-and-out big hit for tween fantasy derived from a pre-existing novel (I’ll give Chronicles of Narnia a half-point and that’s because while the first film was a monster hit, number two only did half of the biz that #1 did.)
Second: Twilight is owned by Summit Entertainment and was made for the very modest cost of $37 million. If the $65 million figure holds this movie is likely going to end up with a final gross of around $150 million. That cash is going to go back into Summit for not just the next two Twilight movies that are already being written but for the company’s other future developments that are two, four, five years down the road. Summit is going to be the next New Line Cinema. There is a new major Hollywood player being minted this week.
Third: Robert Pattinson will be the new Orlando Bloom. Twilight’s leading man is going to find that his star power will have gone through the roof. After this weekend he’ll be courted by the Ridley Scotts, the McGs, the Brett Ratners to star in $150 million dollar epics. Whether Pattinson will be better able to shape his career choices after becoming Hollywood’s latest it sensation than Bloom did post-Pirates of the Caribbean, time will tell.
Fourth: the success of Twilight will be the final bit of evidence of the rise of a new major demographic for studios to court: the fangirl. We saw the beginnings of this new demo last year when the Hannah Montana movie made big bank, followed by the $150 million dollar gross of the Sex in the City movie, followed by the $100 m in ticket sales for High School Musical 3. And why can’t there be female equivalents to the Star Treks, the Star Wars, the Terminators? I’m not saying that there aren’t male fans of Twilight, nor am I saying that there aren’t female fans of those three sci-fi franchises I just mentioned — but what I am saying is that predominantly the Twilight fan base segways into the female crowd just as the Star Wars fanbase is male dominated. Here we stand looking ahead and seeing a new movie fanbase for studios to make films for.
Fifth and final: the mega-success of Twilight will be all the motivation that movie studios need to go out, find and option the next Stephanie Meyer. There’s no question that J.K. Rowling started this phenomena but Meyer is the next A-list authoress-turned-film source material to follow in her footsteps. If you’re a mom and you have an idea for a sci-fi story that has tween protagonists, my advice would be to start writing it down and then shopping for an agent — NOW.
Posted at 11:34AM by Patrick
Mike said on November 20th, 2008 at 12:01 pm:
Twit-light
Jason Merrell said on November 20th, 2008 at 9:04 pm:
“I GOT it, J.C.! Imagine ‘Titanic’ meets ‘Lost Boys’ meets ‘Blade’ meets ‘Underworld’ meets ‘Blade 2′….but with more jumping around and hissing!”
crunchy said on November 21st, 2008 at 10:49 am:
Twat-light