“All This Movie Can Ever Make”: Studios Underestimated Twilight Box Office Potential By Over $300M

Twilight director Catherine Hardwicke has revealed how studios had very little faith in the movie, expecting it to make just $29 million during its entire theatrical run. The film adapts Stephenie Meyer’s first book in The Twilight Saga, telling the budding love story of high school student Bella Swan and vampire Edward Cullen. It became a worldwide success, spawning four sequels that were box office hits.

Speaking on the Watchalong podcast (via Variety), Hardwicke revealed Twilight‘s box office success was doubtful at the time, being compared to other movies based on women’s books that made just $29 million. The director said the vampire love story exceeded all expectations when it made $400 million during its theatrical run. Check out what Hardwicke had to say below:

Every studio in town turned this down. MTV and Paramount, they put it in turnaround. Everyone said we weren’t making this. Even when I started on the job, they said, ‘You know, “Sisterhood of the Traveling Pants” was a popular book for girls. It made $29 million. That’s probably all this movie can ever make.’ Of course our opening weekend was $69 million and we made $400 million overall. Nobody could predict it!

The Twilight Saga Became A Major Box Office Success

By the end of its theatrical run, Twilight earned $408.4 million at the box office. This level of success escalated with each new sequel, with New Moon earning $711 million, Eclipse garnering $698.8 million, and Breaking Dawn – Part 1 getting $712.2 million. The highest-performing film in the entire franchise was Breaking Dawn – Part 2, earning a massive $848.6 million during its theatrical release.

Some have criticized the films for their quality and storytelling decisions, such as Breaking Dawn – Part 2‘s final battle never happening for real. While the movie series wasn’t critically successful, its appeal to audiences looking for a supernatural love story underscores how it still did what it set out to do. By becoming as much of a hit as it was, the first movie served as a launchpad for young adult novels being adapted to the big screen.

Despite some doubts, Edward and Bella’s love story ended up paying off much more than expected over the course of five movies. Twilight is also expected to get a TV series remake from Lionsgate, which could reflect the franchise’s box office popularity on the small screen. Given how much of a success the original films were, though, it’s unclear if such an unexpected hit can be replicated with the same series.