Will ‘New Moon' Finally Earn ‘Twilight' Geek Cred?
Take that, Jedi nerds! According to Fandango, The Twilight Saga: New Moon is now the best advance ticket seller of all time, beating out such fan-driven franchise films as Star Wars: Episode III – Revenge of the Sith, Harry Potter and the Half-Blood Prince, and The Dark Knight – and it hasn't even had its premiere!
Credit the overwhelming success of the first Twilight film, which along with the above blockbusters makes up the top five presale ticket sellers thus far. Fans have been waiting for November 20, 2009 with bated breath – and they've been camping out for days at the site of tonight's Los Angeles premiere – so it's no surprise that Twi-hards have made New Moon an event film. In fact, the Twilight universe has created its own veritable cottage industry out of Twilight events and premieres and release parties at which lines of hundreds of screaming teenagers and women inevitably materialize.
So, consider New Moon's competition: Harry Potter, Star Wars, and even the storied Batman franchise are all properties with devoted fan bases so fervent that they've spawned standalone fan communities within their respective genres. But within this world of light saber-wielding fanatics and wannabe wizards, Twilighters have had a notoriously rough time fitting in with "geek culture." So with this show of solidarity – and, maybe proving that they love their franchise more than Potterites or comics fans love theirs, at least in terms of pre-release ticket buying – might Twilight fans earn a little more respect from their peers?
The third film, The Twilight Saga: Eclipse, is already in the editing room with director David Slade and slated for a June 30, 2010 release. It will be the franchise's first foray into summer tent pole season, a release window usually reserved for superhero movies or male-oriented blockbusters – but judging from the 383 million dollar worldwide take for Twilight, Eclipse has a good shot at outperforming its competition and, perhaps, earning respect as a blockbuster picture, once and for all.
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