Twilight Sequels Already Headed for the Typewriter
Posted by Neil Miller (neil@filmschoolrejects.com) on November 14, 2008
The first Twilight movie isn’t in theaters until next week but that doesn’t appear to be slowing down Summit Entertainment’s commitment to making a few more in the coming years. As you should already know, the “Twilight” series spans four books, with “Eclipse,” “New Moon” and “Breaking Dawn” to follow.
The Hollywood Reporter’s Stephen Zeitchik is reporting today that Summit Entertainment has acquired the rights to the next three books and has re-hired Melissa Rosenberg, who wrote the script for the first film, to adapt the next two. A writer has not yet been hired for the fourth adaptation, which is understandable as that production would still be a few years away.
As THR reports, Rosenberg, who also penned Step Up and is a writer/co-exec producer on Showtime’s Dexter, has said she was methodical in writing the scripts, choosing not to read future “Twilight” books so she could stay true to the evolution of the characters.
Fans of Twilight have been itching to hear news of the sequels even before the release of the first film, insisting that the fan base of the books will propel the film to financial success. Though, while fans are very confident, many box office pundits are remaining cautious as there have been a number of fan-driven, buzz-heavy failures in the recent past. As well, I would caution fans about taking the acquisition of the three other books as a commitment to making the films. Should the first film fail to meet financial expectations, the studio is likely to tread very carefully going forward. And with Summit Entertainment being a relatively young and small studio, they can’t afford for Twilight to fail and still push forward with sequels.
Moral of the story for Twilight fans: you’d better deliver the dollars or Edward and Bella’s on-screen romance will be very short lived.
Do you think that Twilight will make enough money to warrant sequels?
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