LA TIMES COUNTDOWN WILL THE SEQUELS GET MADE?
La Times Countdown 4 days left. The article poses a question: Will the sequels get made?
As many of you read on Friday, my former colleague and pal Steven Zeitchik at the Hollywood Reporter wrote a story about Summit Entertainment ramping up development on the next two films in the “Twilight” franchise:The company has acquired rights to the next three novels in Stephenie Meyer’s blockbuster vampire series and has hired “Twilight” scribe Melissa Rosenberg to pen scripts based on “New Moon” and “Eclipse,” the second and third books, respectively.
Rosenberg has said that she would adapt anything Meyer writes and sources tell the Countdown that, in fact, she is already at work condensing “New Moon” into a feature-length script.The movie’s director Catherine Hardwicke told Entertainment weekly that “Twilight” would have to gross $150 million for the studio to give a sequel the go. ”This has to be a crazy hit,” she said. ”Nobody can say that it can do that well right now.”
To put that in some perspective, the most recent “Harry Potter” film (“Harry Potter and the Order of the Phoenix”) grossed more than $292 million in the United States alone. And the lowest-grossing of the franchise (“Harry Potter and the Prizoner of Azkaban”) made almost $250 million in the U.S.
But the Potter movies are also considered family films, which appeal to a larger broader audience. A better comparison might be the female-skewing “Sex and the City,” which in spite of its R rating made more than $152 million domestically.
It’s not clear whether or not Hardwicke meant $150 million total (in the U.S. and abroad), but do you think “Twilight” can hit that mark? Is it a slam dunk? Are you planning to see the movie more than once to make sure “New Moon” will be brought to life?
We’ve asked this question before, and I think the answer has been a resounding yes. But we shall soon see. Are you guys just dying with excitement? I’m off to Los Angeles, try not to miss me too much.
