Twilight poised for box office killing
Posted
Twilight took $US70.6 million in its opening weekend in the US. (miss-britt.com)
Forget wizards or dragons, this Christmas will be all about vampires.
US author Stephenie Meyer's much-loved teen vampire novel Twilight hits the big screen in Australia next week following a huge $US70.6 million opening weekend in the States last month.
Hoyts Distribution chief executive Robert Slaviero is predicting Twilight will be one of the films of the Australian summer too.
"I don't think anyone expected it to open to those type of numbers in the US, but the momentum has been quite incredible," Mr Slaviero said.
"We have high expectations, but I'm not going to put a number on it."
The film already has a built-in core audience thanks to the bestselling books.
Meyer has been hailed the next JK Rowling, and critics predict Twilight and the three other bestselling books in the series - New Moon, Eclipse and Breaking Dawn - could rival the Harry Potter franchise in popularity.
More than 25 million copies of the books have been sold internationally, translated into more than 20 languages.
In Australia, sales of the series top 600,000, with around 24,000 copies flying off the shelves every week.
The film has received the thumbs up from Meyer.
"There are a couple of things in the movie that I wish I'd put into the book because I thought they were genius," she said.
"The main thing was getting the right actors, which they really did."
Actress Kristen Stewart plays heroine Bella Swan, a teenager who moves to the rainy town of Forks, Washington where she meets the mysterious and beautiful Edward Cullen, played by Robert Pattinson - who was also Cedric Diggory in two of the Potter films.
- AAP
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