Over the weekend, one of the more ridiculous rumors I have heard in a while went circulating around the internet – that Lionsgate was already looking at remaking their popular Twilight franchise even though the final installment is still five months away from hitting theaters.
The story got its start over at Bloody Disgusting who couched their report with the codicil that Lionsgate would of course deny the story. True to predicted form, the studio reached out to Deadline to quickly debunk the rumor with a phone call call from an unnamed source at Lionsgate subsidiary Summit Entertainment, the studio that actually produces the film series. They did manage to give themselves an escape hatch that does leave the door open a crack for something to happen with the franchise in the future depending on what Stephanie Meyer, author of the books that the film series is based on – “We will happily support Stephanie Meyer if she decides to proceed in any way. But [November’s Twilight:Breaking Dawn Part 2] will be the last one unless that should change.”
So, sorry to disappoint those folks who thought that perhaps a reboot would result in films that were actually watchable, but it looks as if these are the films we are stuck with until Meyers decides otherwise.
But the more I read about the rumor this weekend, the more I realized that a reboot of the series would not necessarily result in films that were a marked improvement over the deficiencies that many critics have pointed out. To date, Summit has made literally billions of dollars off of the franchise. So to the studio bean counters, there is absolutely nothing broken that needs fixing. Never mind the staid acting, Kristin Stewart’s permanent glazed, slack-jawed expression, the subpar CG effects and just barely adequate direction. If it was good enough to sell tickets this time, it will be good enough to sell tickets when the time does come to revisit the series when the studio decides that its coffers are looking a little low.