When your movie makes over $481 million worldwide in the span of two weeks, the question isn’t whether or not to adapt the final book, but how many movies can you make from that final book? Summit Entertainment, who are at this moment building giant pools of gold coins like the one Scrooge McDuck has in his money vault, are currently figuring out whether or not they can put the pieces in play to turn Breaking Dawn, the final book in the Twilight series, into a two-part movie like what we’ll be seeing with Harry Potter and the Deathly Hallows. Variety’s sources say that Summit wants two pictures (can you refer to “common sense” as a source?), but that means clearing two hurdles. The first is whether or not they can afford to pay the higher salaries the lead actors will command for a fifth film. It’s not difficult to overcome this obstacle and Summit knows what they have to do: cut fat checks. Problem solved.
The more complicated issue is in bringing back New Moon director Chris Weitz. Because he brought the budget of New Moon in under $50 million and got along with the cast, he’s the top choice. However, as we reported last week, Weitz is planning to make his next film a smaller piece called The Gardener, which would also be made at Summit. That’s all well and good but gardeners don’t make money; vampires, werewolves, and one-dimensional characters do! Summit wants to have Weitz postpone The Gardener and so the questions for Weitz are A) would he be willing to spend more time away from his family to do an extended shoot; and B) do all of the toilets in his home need to be made from gold and encrusted with diamonds? As we all await the answer to that question, director David Slade pushed forward on the next Twilight film, Eclipse, which will hit theaters on June 20, 2010.
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