In preparation for this week’s release of the third of the “Twilight Saga” films (entitled “Eclipse”), I recently watched the first two. The “Twilight” films (as well as the books they’re based upon) have become major blockbusters with many young fans enamored by the series about teen romance, vampires and werewolves. However, although they may be tremendously popular with certain demographics, the first two “Twilights” leave a lot to be desired.

Twilight (2008): The first of the series tells the story of Bella Swan (Kristen Stewart) who moves away from home to spend time with her father in the small town of Forks, Washington. While there, she becomes attracted to a pale and creepy loner named Edward Cullen (Robert Pattison). Edward’s family is a strange group who don’t seem to have any friends. However, Edward soon saves Bella’s life and they start seeing each other, to his family’s disapproval. Eventually, Bella realizes that Edward and his family are vampires. Unlike other vampires though, they eat only animals not humans — although they are always tempted. Bella falls in love with Edward but then, after another vampire finds out Bella’s human, the Cullens have to work to protect the new non-vampire member of their clan.

The movie has some good qualities to it, including a lively scene where the Cullens play “vampire baseball” together. The movie also has a quality scene where Bella is forced to lie to her father to escape from the group of vampires trying to kill her. Other than those two interesting moments, the characters are boring and flat and so is the story. The movie becomes a bland teenage drama about a girl meeting a guy from the wrong side of the tracks, but this time the guy has fangs instead of a tattoo. (more…)

It was another good weekend for Summit Entertainment. The distributor behind last year’s meteoric hit Twilight has scored a solid hit with the Alex Proyas-directed Knowing, starring Nicolas Cage. Despite shaky word-of-mouth and negative reviews, the sci-fi thriller got a solid 9% bump on Saturday for a $9.7M second day, and it will likely finish its opening weekend with a possible $24.8M.

As a production company, Summit is responsible for some monster hits, including commercially and/or artistically successful films like Once (Oscar nominee for Best Picture), American Pie ($102..5M domestic), Memento (Oscar nominee for Best Original Screenplay: Chris Nolan), Mr. & Mrs. Smith ($186.3M domestic) and In the Valley of Ellah (Tommy Lee Jones nominated for Best Actor). But as a distributor, they got off to a slow start. (more…)

Hollywood execs seem to be waking up to the power of women at America’s multiplexes. The success of He’s Just Not That Into You (Warner Bros) and this weekend’s Confessions of a Shopaholic (Disney) can be traced to Meryl Streep’s witty riff on the tyrannical Anna Wintour in The Devil Wears Prada in the summer of 2006. Prada opened to a $27.5M weekend on its way to a $124.75M domestic cume (Streep also earned an Oscar nomination).

Then in July of 2007, New Line grabbed an almost identical $27.47M with the opening weekend of the female-skewing Hairspray, translating to $118.87M domestic. Also Enchanted, starring Amy Adams, was a hit for Disney over the holidays reaching $127.8M domestic.

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