Twilight, the Movie: This Season's Harry Potter?

If the vampire romance is as huge as the series of novels it's based on, it'll bring name recognition to its studio, Summit Entertainment

By Ronald Grover

As a recent devotee of the HBO vampire show True Blood, I confess there is something morbidly appealing about the cousins of Dracula. And heaven knows I'm not the only one. My 24-year-old daughter is one of the mobs of young women who are totally addicted to the best-selling vampire love story Twilight (BusinessWeek, 7/31/08) from author Stephenie Meyer, a series of novels that feature a 17-year-old girl who falls in love with a teen boy who just happens to be a vampire. So you have to hand it to tiny Summit Entertainment, which only a year back was jump-starting its movie business by arranging for $1 billion in new funding, for coming up with what could be one of the biggest hits of the year.

If you don't know the name Summit Entertainment, don't worry. Until recently, it hasn't had its name on too many brand-name flicks, choosing instead to go for low-budget fare while distributing films for other small studios. (Didn't catch the studio's 2007 flick P2 about a psychopath on the loose in a parking garage? No wonder that one grossed an underwhelming $3.9 million.) Its big hit until recently? This spring's bloodthirsty martial arts flick, Never Back Down, which grossed a mere $24 million.

But Twilight, the film adaptation of the publishing sensation, will likely change all that. If Hollywood wags are right, it should have a major first week when it opens on Nov. 21. The whispering is the flick could do maybe $30 million or more on its first weekend, and it's darn near a lock to hit the $100 million mark by playing straight through Thanksgiving and Christmas. Already, Fandango, the online ticketing site, says the film has sold out opening shows at some 100 theaters across the country, a pace that Fandango says puts it on par with the site's tracking of Disney's (DIS) megahit High School Musical.

So how did Summit find itself in such fast company? Chalk it up to some good fortune—and some heady connections. Back in 2006—before Twilight became a phenomenon, selling more than 25 million copies—Summit CEO Rob Friedman, a former top executive at Viacom's (VIA) Paramount, was tipped that his former studio had decided against making the film. So, with another of his executives, Friedman says he read the script—and two "stale scripts" (Hollywood-speak for scripts that were found lacking)—and took a chance. "I saw something that had franchise potential if we did it right," says Friedman.

Keeping Costs Down

Still, Summit being Summit, they made it on the cheap—as in $37 million—while spending another $30 million or so to market the movie, also a little light for a Hollywood blockbuster wannabe. To write the script, Summit turned to Melissa Rosenberg, who wrote Showtime's odd serial killer-turned-cop TV show Dexter, and veteran indie film writer Catherine Hardwicke.

Next a little luck came into play. For starters, Twilight became a huge hit. Then in August, when the Twilight movie was complete, Warner Bros. (TWX) decided to move its big holiday release, Harry Potter and the Half-Blood Prince, to next summer. Friedman moved the premiere of Twilight from Dec. 12, where he had it originally to avoid going up against Harry Potter, to the Nov. 21 slot, giving it more of a shot to catch the Thanksgiving and Christmas crowd.

The movie is now up against Disney's animated film Bolt, which is unlikely to lure the teen girls that should be Twilight's core audience. Of course, to make it a big hit, Summit needs to expand the audience to the girls' dates, which it intends to do by pegging one of its ads to guys. That ad, one of three the studio has made, features the bad vampires taking on the good ones and it's showing up on outlets such as ESPN, where guys tune in.

Summit has been plowing this ground for months. In April it put trailers on MySpace (NWS) that have been seen by some 4 million viewers, and sent its two stars, Kirsten Stewart and British heartthrob Robert Pattinson, on the talk-show circuit. Entertainment Weekly put the stars on its cover and is planning to do so again for its holiday movie issue. Even the soundtrack is selling well. Throw in some fairly aggressive use of MTV.com and the Twilight books' 300-odd fan sites, and I'm gonna bet there isn't a 17-year-old girl in America who doesn't know this flick is coming.

All of which shows that sometimes you don't have to be a megastudio like Warner or Disney to have a franchise to crow about. Yeah, yeah, Robert Friedman says he isn't counting his sequels yet. "I'm going to wait until the day after it opens to worry about sequels." Sure, Rob. Start lining up the film crew.

Grover is Los Angeles bureau chief for BusinessWeek.