BoxOffice® Pro - November 2012

BEYOND
BREAKING
DAWN
Twilight producer Wyck Godfrey on the mechanics and marketing of his
massive five-film franchise and what its audience wants to see next
by Amy Nicholson
NO ONE EXPECTED THE FIRST TWI-
LIGHT TO BE SUCH A HUGE SUCCESS.
WHEN DID YOU FIRST KNOW THAT
YOU HAD SOMETHING BIG?
I knew that the books had connected with a
young adult/teen readership, but at the time,
that didn’t mean a lot in terms of box office.
I think we knew we would make a successful
film, but successful meant Sisterhood of
the Traveling Pants [a domestic box
office gross of $39 million]. What
that made was a win for us. It really
wasn’t until we cast Kristen Stewart
and Rob Pattinson [the stars and
real-life couple who made tabloid
headlines this summer when their
romance hit the rocks] in the movie
and started to see just the online
response—people went crazy with
every casting—that we realized
that there was a fervor behind this
property that I don’t think existed
with something like Sisterhood of
the Traveling Pants. And then when
we started shooting the movie in
Portland, there were people watching
us film, and that was bizarre. I didn’t
experience that even on I, Robot with
Will Smith—you didn’t have people
following us around to every location
and just standing around while
we shot. Comic-Con that summer
was really the event that made us
realize that we had something bigger
than people would have expected,
but even then we didn’t know what
it would open to. What it ultimately
did was beyond everyone’s expectations.
And then from Twilight to
New Moon, it doubled. It definitely
was a game changer in the film business,
and all of a sudden properties
like Hunger Games became very important.
Up until then, you had Harry Potter, but
Harry Potter was an all-audience movie. Twilight
was the first movie that really felt like it
was for girls and women.
IN THE LAST FIVE YEARS, WE’VE SEEN
A HALF-DOZEN POPULAR KIDS SERIES
MAKE ONE SPLASHY FILM AND NEVER
GET TO DO A SEQUEL. WHEN DID
YOU KNOW FOR CERTAIN YOU’D GET
TO MAKE THE SECOND MOVIE, NEW
MOON?
We had the script for New Moon written
and were in discussions with the director of
Twilight, Catherine Hardwick, before Twilight
opened. What changed was the need to really
crank it out for the following year because the
actors would be aging—and obviously
in the movie, the actors aren’t
supposed to be aging. When Twilight
opened, there was pressure to get
New Moon out the following November,
and that changed the game
for Catherine, who really wanted to
take more time. You see that happen
a lot, both with Gary Ross [director
of The Hunger Games] and Rupert
Wyatt [director of Rise of the Planet
of the Apes], that they don’t want to
be hemmed into a box. They weren’t
when they made the first film, and
all of a sudden they feel this pressure
to meet deadlines. We were full-on
looking for a new director the week
Twilight opened when Catherine
decided she didn’t want to do it.
THAT WAS THE FIRST TIME A
LOT OF TEENAGERS BECAME
AWARE OF THE POLITICS OF
HOLLYWOOD AND THE DIREC-
TORS BEHIND THEIR FAVORITE
MOVIES.
The Internet has really changed the
way audiences participate in the making
of movies. Deadline Hollywood
spreads to Yahoo! Movies, and you
get news every day on productions.
That was definitely happening at a
high degree on our movies.
NOVEMBER 2012 BOXOFFICE PRO 43