Twilight’s Heading to TV
The FX cable network has acquired the television rights to broadcast The Twilight Saga over the next couple of years. They also scooped up two sci-fi movies and an Oscar hopeful thanks to preexisting agreements they have with Summit Entertainment and various other studios.
According to THR, FX will start running last year’s Twilight in late 2011, while New Moon will debut in 2012, and Eclipse will air in early 2013. At the moment Summit has yet to greenlight Breaking Dawn, the fourth installment of the series but we all know its coming. Even the actors involved are expecting to film the movie relatively soon. The studio will continue to milk this cow until there’s nothing left.
On another note, FX also picked up a couple on non-vampire related films including The Hurt Locker, Knowing, and Push. All three movies are set to debut sometime in mid-2012. Having these films on their upcoming slate will be a ratings coupe for the cable network, but it will cost them a good chunk of change.
The license fee for the movies is based on their North American box office performance. If the third and fourth Twilight movies continue to go strong, each reaching the $200 million mark domestically, FX could end up paying close to $100 million for the quartet. (For a marquee film title, ad-supported networks usually shell out about 12% of the domestic tally and as much per as $24 million if the movie’s receipts total crosses $200 million.)
This would have been an even better deal for the fans had the movies gone to a broadcast affiliate like ABC,NBC, or CBS. At least that way everyone could watch it, and you wouldn’t miss out if you didn’t have cable. If the wait is that long, you might as well pick up the DVDs.
What do you think of FX picking up the Twilight series?
Wednesday, November 25, 2009 4:51PM
I hope Stephanie's team can put the brakes on the whole thing. It's just sad that every time there is something created that is beautiful, Hollywood has to come along and suck the life out of it. I hope the fans put their foot down also. The movies are great. It's nice to see the fantastic world we've been sucked into given a face, but I hate to see it exploited. It kills me, but I'm secretly boycotting Burger King right now.I almost don't even want them to make Breaking Dawn if it's going to be watered down into a bunch of senseless angst ridden tripe. Not that New Moon was completely tripe, but I thought the script was pitiful. It seemed like it was more about setting up Eclipse and creating a mood more than anything. Was it just me or did Rob and Kristin's chemistry completely flat line in the reunion scenes? It was almost like, "Hey, I guess it's back to you and me again, whatever."
Friday, January 22, 2010 7:05AM
I completely agree. Although it's hard to wait, I know in the long-run, fans would appreciate a better script and deeper acting. I'm tired of hearing the "no movie can be made like the book" excuse. I don't think it would be extremely hard to get the feel of the books and accurate scripts written if Melissa and the rest of the Twilight producers and directors took their time with it. Stephenie wrote these books with movie scenes constantly playing in her head. Either they need to consult her more or just hold their money-crazed horses.