Summit Entertainment isn’t Warner Brothers, New Line, Disney or an other mega-conglomerate movie studio. It’s got it’s good an bad side. Good side is (like Chris Weitz mentioned) the studio really knows the material and wants it to be true to source. They aren’t churning out a zillion projects a year where quality is lost to quantity. On the other hand, small studio means less people all doing triple duty on everything from PR to rights acquisition. There’s no one to fall back on in the crunch time. So what does having a blockbuster like the Twilight Saga mean for Summit? The LA Times explores the issues of indie success.
“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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