Twilight success puts Summit in Mega-Franchise business

The success of New Moon has solidified the Twilight Movies as one of the most lucrative franchise there is. It showed Hollywood that not only a female based fanbase can drive a movie to box-office gold but also a low-budget franchise can strike gold.

In an article at the LA Times, they explore the success of the Twilight films and how can this make an impact in Hollywood. Here is an excerpt of the article:

When you factor in the original film’s $383.8 million in worldwide grosses with the $700 million or more in worldwide grosses that “New Moon” could eventually roll up, Summit Entertainment will soon find itself having the biggest true independent film franchise in recent history. (By true independent, I’m disqualifying New Line, which made even more money with its “Lord of the Rings” franchise but wasn’t a true independent since it was already owned by Time-Warner by the time the “LOTR” series was launched.)

Summit’s runaway success with “Twilight” is a very big deal, since — like ‘em or not — franchises provide the building blocks for the modern movie business. With them, a studio has the money in the bank (as well as the blockbuster in the can) to help survive a lean year or a couple of costly flops. You never see any of the top execs at Warners crawling out on a high ledge, preparing to jump when the studio is pulverized by a disaster like “Poseidon” or “Speed Racer” or ”Body of Lies.” That’s because Warners always has another “Harry Potter” or “Batman” saga sitting on the pad, preparing to launch into the box-office stratosphere. Ditto for Sony with “Spider-Man,” Paramount with “Star Trek” or Disney with ”Pirates of the Caribbean.”

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