New Moon Gets It Right And Rakes In The Dough

Hi there whoever may be reading this. I've been really happy to hear of New Moon's success. Stephenie Meyer really seems like a great person, and I love to see her succeed. The thing that has really surprised me is how much she and the no-name production company Summit Entertainment is succeeding this time. In case you didn't know the movie made $275 million dollars in the first weekend. Third to Dark Knight and Spider Man 3 in it's opening weekend in the US. Top opening ever in China. Amazing.

I mean, put this in perspective. Today Disney announced that Johnny Depp has agreed to take 35 million to reprise his role as Captain Jack. Dark Knight and Spider Man 3 cost around 250 million each to make. New Moon is competing against these movies and cost only 50 million to make. They are making a killing.

Why does this movie succeed where so many others fail, and at such a tiny cost? Well, I can think of 3 reasons that probably have something to do with it:

1. They are relatively clean. Devoid of crass language, potty humor, and overt sex.
2. They target women. 80% of the tickets were sold to women this weekend. Let's face it, women are rarely targeted effectively with the blockbuster movies. Hollywood usually puts much more effort into men.
3. They target the fans! Less people are excited about the Harry Potter movies because the people who love the books (a HUGE number of their viewers) hate the destruction of the stories that happens in the movies. The twilight movies (and the books for that matter) are designed to please the fans! What a revolutionary concept! This makes me wonder what would've happend if the Harry Potter movies had gone after the book fan base. Would they be up there in the top 3 too?

Anyway, I was happy to be one of the men in the 20% this weekend. Sure the movie was a bit cheesy, sure it would be nice if Edward smiled once in a while, sure Jacob could show off his chest a bit less... ;-) But I really enjoyed watching it with my wife. I am happy to see a movie that compliments the book, one that is produced outside the hollywood mainstream, and one that is changing the rules of what movies can succeed in a big way.

I am sure that this will not go unnoticed by Hollywood, and that we are going to see a ton of copycat movies coming out soon that I will have to sit through... Chick flicks are back in vogue, and I may even like it.... Maybe....