When it comes to bang for the buck, “Twilight” may be Hollywood’s most successful franchise.
In racking up over $1.1 billion at the worldwide box office, the series has put the tiny upstart studio Summit on the map and demonstrated that billion-dollar grosses can happen even on a bargain budget.
Just take a gander at those profit margins.
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The first movie in the franchise -- 2009’s “Twilight -- cost $37 million and grossed $392.5 worldwide, roughly 10 times its production costs. Its sequel, “New Moon,” was an even bigger success, banking $709.7 million worldwide, while costing $50 million to produce. That represents a 14-fold return on Summit’s investment.
The third installment, “Eclipse,” hits theaters Wednesday, and though the budget grew to $68 million, the film is projected to earn $175 million from Wednesday to Sunday, according to Jeff Hartke an analyst at the Hollywood Stock Exchange.
“It represents a fundamental paradigm shift -- one that producers all over Hollywood are scrambling to understand and leverage,” said Jeff Gomez, CEO of Starlight Entertainment, who has consulted on franchises such as “Pirates of the Caribbean.” “They’re going to make their budget back in 24 hours.”
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“Pirates of the Caribbean,” “Harry Potter” and “Lord of the Rings” dwarf the “Twilight” films in terms of worldwide gross, but it took an awful lot of green to get them there.
The first installments of each of those series all cost in the $100 million range. That figure only continued to grow at a staggering pace. For instance, by the time “Pirates” reached its third installment, “At World’s End,” production costs topped out at $300 million.
“At World’s End” was so costly that it actually lost money on its domestic release.
What's all the more astonishing is that the "Twilight" films were made with relatively unknown actors, few special effects and a budget that, at least on the first film, would barely pay for craft services on a Jerry Bruckheimer picture.
So what's "Twilight's" secret ingredient? What it does have is a timeless love story that strikes a chord with an audience that Hollywood often ignores -- teenage girls.
“These are based on archetypal characters, and they have clear messages that resonate with a clear target audience,” Vinny Bruzzese, president of the motion picture division for the research firm OTX, told TheWrap. “It costs more to blow up helicopter than have two people kiss, but both drive different audiences to the theater. It shows that young females can open a movie.”
To be sure, costs will rise exponentially on the fourth and fifth installments in the saga, with the budget expected to flirt with $100 million.
