Twilight's Fourth book BREAKING DAWN to be Split into 2 Films
Summit Entertainment is looking to make as much money as they possibly can from Stephanie Meyer's Twilight girly vampire books. And why not? The most recent film New Moon has made over $481 million dollars worldwide in two weeks! As much as I am not a fan of the Twilight series, they have developed a product and built an audience that is going to make them a lot of money. So splitting the last book, Breaking Dawn, into two films is good business. Hey, Harry Potter is doing it with The Deathly Hallows, and the fans are happy about it. I can only imagine the excitement of the Twilight fans.
What sucks for us that this means we will have to once again deal with the crazy Twi-Hards at Comic-Con for an extra year.
The screenwriter for the film series, Melissa Rosenberg, is set to finish the series, but according to Variety Summit has to clear several hurdles before Rosenberg learns how many more scripts she'll write. What do they mean how many more scripts? She's written three, there is a fourth book they want to split into two films, which makes two more scripts for her to write, unless they are looking to make even more Twilight films! So what are the hurdles?
It's not going to be cheap to split the last book into two films because Summit would need to reopen negotiations, secure approval from the author, and make new deals with the principal cast that is only locked up for four films. So If Breaking Dawn does in fact become two movies, all of the key cast members are going to get crazy fat raises, and the three principals; Robert Pattinson, Kristen Stewart and Taylor Lautner could land paydays in the eight-figure range. Not bad at all.
It also sounds like they want to get Chris Weitz, the director of New Moon, to come back and direct the last two films back to back. Summit is waiting to see if he is up for it. He is currently prepping to direct another smaller film called The Gardener.
If Summit really wants this extra film, they are going to have to pay for dearly. The last film would end up being the most expensive Twilight film made due to the money that are going to have to fork out to the talent to make it happen.
What do you think about Summit splitting the las Twilight book into two films?