This Whole 'Twilight' Thing is being Blown Out of Proportion
I am not yet ready, as others seem to be, to declare this thing a hit
UPDATE: I have learned a few facts. First off, "Twilight", the book, has sold 5.5 million copies in the United States and the film is budgeted at $37 million. I wish I had those facts when I wrote the piece as they may have been helpful. Oh, and for Twilight fans a few extra details on the film's appearance at Comic Con have been revealed.
Two new articles have prompted me to take another look at Twilight and what appears to be an online acceptance that this film will be a giant hit no matter what.
Last night I started a huge rant article, but trashed it as it was going nowhere. I was to be based on the online reactions to the Entertainment Weekly cover featuring Robert Pattinson and Kristen Stewart as Edward and Bella from the Twilight film. The very first comment over at the Twilight-obsessed MTV Movie Blog reads as such:
EWWWWWWWWWWW Edward looks like a ZOMBIE. The stylists and photographer obviously had no idea who the characters are.
AND THEY SHOULD HAVE STEPPED AWAY FROM THE PHOTOSHOP!
Horrible! I thought the photo was a fake at first. I can’t believe EW is actually printing this crap.
And wow he likes like a hairy powdered donut.
And Bella? Uh, when did she turn into LA FEMME FATALE?
Some people get a little more to the point, "The people who worked on the photo shoot and the people who edited it should be fired."
This goes on for eight pages of what are now 371 comments as of this article. One of them comes down hard on Stewart saying, "The actress looks very vacant in it. Like there’s nothing going on behind the eyes. The actress herself is rather plain so they’ve worked over time on this to make her look pretty." Damn, that's gotta make Kristen feel good, I am sure the commenter named "alison" must be a real knock out and brimming with personality, at least based on her comment I would think so.
The Los Angeles Times blog picked up the rants and raves and now the New York Magazine Blog has done the same. The "Times" article doesn't give any opinion and just states the facts, but NY Mag ends their post saying, "This thing is going to stampede across your holiday season."
Is it? Or is it going to be a low rumble?
The last time online fervor for a new book series adapted for the big screen that was not Harry Potter related was Eragon a $100 million budgeted movie based on the books by Christopher Paolini. The film managed only 75% of its budget and was considered a failure despite racking up an additional $174 million overseas. The sequels haven't been discussed since.
Personally I don't see much of a difference between "Eragon" fans and "Twilight" fans, they both seem to be just as involved in their books, "Twilight" fans just seem to be a little louder. You can't post an article on the subject and mention anything negative or they will be on you before you hit "Publish". Online news sources have become hip to this fact and you will see Twilight related articles all over the place any time anything new comes out related to the film (I have done it). The move translates to page views, even if you have to rile a few feathers in the process.
However, I am not here to rile anyone up. I just think journalists are getting ahead of themselves crowning this thing as an achievement already.
Have you seen the teaser trailer? I am sure the majority of people that are not "Twilight" fans will look at it and almost immediately think it is some kind of a direct-to-DVD, bargain bin release. Outside of Kristen Stewart's mild fame and Robert Pattinson's short stint in the Harry Potter films, this film's biggest names are Nikki Reed (Thirteen) and Peter Facinelli ("Fastlane"), and I would wager a guess that the majority of folks out there reading this don't know who those two are. Hell, I probably wouldn't know off the top of my head if I didn't talk about films for a living. Sure, Catherine Hardwicke has directed some movies, but they have hardly been success stories. Thirteen is her major achievement, and it was a good flick, but a $4 million box-office return doesn't translate to legions of followers.
Based on the trailer and the fact that Summit Films is making this little feature on the cheap ($25-30 million budget) it tells me they are placing a lot of faith in the core fan base, which is chomping at the bit to see this world brought to life. It's too early to tell exactly how this film is tracking outside of the rabid fans, but I am sure Summit has a good idea of how to handle it.
Safe bet would assume that if Summit sees that just fans of the books are excited for it they will give it a slow roll out in just a few theaters. Try and make sure the shows are sold out with people that are going to love it regardless as their obsession with the day walking vampire is realized on screen. Word of mouth can build and just as Christmas hits they can expand into a wide release and hope to gain audiences over the holiday week. The other scenario, of course, would be that the next trailer looks like an actual studio made film and brings more folks into this world and actually energizes people that have not read the books 100 times and Summit can just give it a traditional 2,500+ theater release, make their opening weekend money and see what happens from there. If reviews and word-of-mouth are good it will continue forward. If not, it will fizzle and die.
Fizzle and die or massive success, either way considering this first film is being made for so cheap it won't take much for them to be able to go forward with a sequel, something that has already been mentioned. It's the benefit of making movies for cheap that already have a built in fan base and you know Twilight is going to do well on DVD and Summit is destined to come out of this a winner. The question is how wide will the margin be?
I have read "Twilight" and it is an entertaining book. Personally I think they may have gone the wrong route. Considering the massive amount of fans the series has and the success of supernatural television series this film would have been a huge hit as an hour-long television drama. It really is nothing more than "Dawson's Creek" with vampires. They could have run the show for nine long seasons on The WB and then made the move to the big screen with a $100 million movie that would take the world by storm as it would have more than just the book loving fans, but also the illiterate couch potatoes as well. Talk about a winning combination.
All in all, I am not ready to dub this film the "Imminent Pop-Culture Takeover" as NY Mag has seen fit to do. My opinion would probably be drastically different had the first trailer been any good, but since it looked television cheap I can only go with what I have seen.
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