We are seeing a lot online regarding this LA Times article that quotes the head of Lionsgate talking about Twilight’s future (highlighting ours):
“I’m anticipating ‘Breaking Dawn Part 2’ being $700 million-plus in worldwide box office,” said Jon Feltheimer, predicting the next film would slightly outdo the $697 million global take of “Breaking Dawn Part 1.”
Asked whether the franchise would continue in some form for Lions Gate, he added, “It’s hard for me to imagine a movie that does $700 million-plus doesn’t have ongoing value. It’s an amazing franchise that they have done a great job of maintaining with absolutely no deterioration. So the simple answer is ‘Boy I hope so.‘”
One person close to the acquisition deal but not authorized to speak publicly suggested that because Lions Gate, unlike Summit, has a television production unit, it could adapt “Twilight” for the small screen.
Asked whether there was a possibility of bringing “Twilight” to television, Feltheimer answered, “I would certainly hope so.”
We’d just like to point out a few things. In fairness of full disclosure we have no insider info here just background of experience with the Saga from February 2006, longer than any other currently running site.
—Summit doesn’t hold rights to Twilight other than the films that they have already done. To our knowledge they have not been granted the rights to do anything further with the series: TV, radio, plays, cartoon, etc.
—Even with a merger, Lionsgate doesn’t get extras, only what Summit currently has the rights to. So they can’t just up and decide “we are doing a TV show” They can certainly pitch the idea, but it doesn’t mean they have the rights unless Stephenie Meyer says yes.
—Stephenie Meyer is next working on The Host movie (not with Summit/Lionsgate) which is slated to start filming shortly and is slated to be a trilogy (according to the director).
—Stephenie Meyer’s production company, Fickle Fish Films, filmed Austenland last summer and will likely start to promote that project to buyers this spring.
—Given that Stephenie Meyer is going to be pretty busy with The Host and Austenland and she likes to be hands on with her items, it would seem unlikely that she’d give carte blanche to develop a TV series that she didn’t have time to give ongoing input on.
—There was some talk about Potter and Rowling extending their series too with the cry of “She’d be stupid not to”, with conventional industry wisdom saying “how can you walk away from this money” Twilight has sold 10’s of millions of books does anyone really think Stephenie Meyer is going to do something just for the money any more than Rowling did?
—Does TV really need another vampire and werewolf show? Vampire Diaries, True Blood, Teenage Werewolf, Grimm. At a certain point you hit saturation.
Now all the above being said, do we think there is a possibility for a Twilight TV series? For a Bella and Edward centric item, no, not really. As Stephenie said, that storyline has been wrapped up. Are there other areas?
To play Devil’s Advocate:
Where could a TV series go? Certainly, Jake, Renesmee, Leah have potential, but it would seem odd to us that Stephenie might let someone else develop what she might want to write herself.
So where is there room that wouldn’t mess with a future universe, and a certain element of drama that makes for good TV? Maybe with the Volturi and the Denali. There’s 1,000’s of years of back-story there that someone could have a lot of fun with and not per se affect sequel books.
So to wrap it up(again no insider info here) but our gut says Lionsgate may want a TV show, but it’s about as likely in the near future as it is for Aro and Edward to have a group hug while Jasper sings Love Is All You Need.
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