As it was Thansgiving in the US yesterday, there’s not much movie news about, due to the fact that everybody is stuffed full of turkey right now and not announcing anything particularly interesting. However it does mean that we have time to report something that’s probably not true, at least not in the form reported, but is kind of intriguing if it is.
Earlier this week, the British tabloid, the Daily Star (and if you’re British you’re probably already laughing that we’d entertain the notion that something reported in the Daily Star is true, as it’s notoroiusly unreliable), reported that the makers of the Twilight movies, Summit Entertainment, are planning to launch a TV series based on the franchise, once the movies come to a close.
While it’s certainly feasible that they’re looking for ways keep the frachise alive after they release Eclipse and Breaking Dawn, whether they’d make a TV series depends on the deal they signed with author Stephenie Meyer, who’s notoriously protective of her work. An even less likely part of the Star’s story is that Summit wants both Robert Pattinson and Kristen Stewart to star in the TV spin-off. The Daily Star seemingly picks a $1.5 million per episode pay-day out of the air for the two stars to appear in the small-screen version, with the newspaper estimating it could land them up to $500 million.
However, to make $500 million at $1.5 million an episode means the show would have to run for around 15 years, so we think the Daily Star may just be making that bit up. That said, although I think we can discount the idea of Pattinson or Stewart wanting to devote the rest of their lives to Twilight, it certainly wouldn’t be a surprise if some of the more minor characters got a TV spin-off.
When this possible TV series might start airing is also unknown, because while filming has already finished on the third film, Eclipse, which was shot almost back-to-back with New Moon, Summit are being rather reticent about talking about what they plan to do with the fourth Twilight story, Breaking Dawn, other than saying the studio “looks forward to bringing Breaking Dawn to the big screen but at this point any additional information is premature”.
It would admittedly be a more difficult book to film, but it is odd that Summit is so keen to get the first three films into cinemas, while being a lot more tight-lipped about the fourth, unless they are developing plans that go beyond just making a single film. While most speculation is that Summit’s unannouced plan is to split the final book in two and make a pair of movies out of it, as Warner is doing with the final Harry Potter book, the idea of expanding the franchise onto TV at the same time, possibly with some of the minor characters from the films, is also just about feasible.