A new (undead) franchise was born in November 2008 when it stunned box office prognosticators by opening in first place against Bolt, Quantum of Solace and Madagascar: Escape 2 Africa. Twilight ended its domestic run with more than $190 million in the bank and another $160 million internationally—and more importantly, a craze that hit Hollywood with more force than teen classics like The Breakfast Club. (You can even buy hand-painted Bella and Edward shoes.) The premise is so simple that writers across the world slapped their foreheads and groaned, “I wish I had thought of that.” An awkward teenage girl falls in love with a mysterious guy crushed on by every single girl at school. The good news is that the feelings are mutual. The bad news is that he’s a vampire who has to constantly restrain himself from sucking her blood. While teenage girls melted over the budding romance, their moms picked up on the abstinence undertones, assuaged that their daughters were mooning over a romance scripted by a married Mormon.
At the center of the storm are stars Kristen Stewart and Robert Pattinson, both off the radar just 15 months ago and now front page news on every weekly tabloid where their “are they or aren’t they?” romance has been breathlessly analyzed with a fever heretofore reserved for A-listers like Brad Pitt and Angelina Jolie. It’s heartening advice for other burgeoning studios like Summit: why spend money for an established star when you can spend it establishing new ones (with contracts for sequels already signed). But if Twilight’s success seems easily duplicated, 2009 saw a legion of imitators trying to capitalize on the teen horror-romance, and it’s likely that nearly all of these would-be franchises will stall out after their first installment. Yet Twilight’s sequel New Moon opened to more during its first day of release than Twilight did during its entire opening weekend—and it has easily surpassed Twilight's cume. The third film, Eclipse, is one of the surest hits of July 2010, but even if it’s blotted out by the summer blockbuster sun, the franchise has left a lasting bite mark. — Phil Contrino
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