Twilight To Follow In Harry Potter's Footsteps With A TV Series Adaptation – And It Feels Doomed To Fail
The so-called golden age of TV continues as news of a "Twilight" reboot series promises to help usher us into the latest phase of that era — turning major film franchises into TV reboots. Following the announcement of a Harry Potter reboot series, set to launch on Warner Bros. Discovery's rebranded streaming service, Max, Lionsgate has gotten in on the action by announcing a TV show based on the massively popular "Twilight" saga. The Robert Pattinson and Kristen Stewart-led film franchise kicked off back in 2008 and went on to earn more than $3.3 billion across five films. And now, we'll be treated to a rehash of the whole thing in streaming form.
As per The Hollywood Reporter, a small screen adaptation of Stephenie Meyer's supernatural romance book series is currently in development over at Lionsgate Television. The project is in the very early stages and has reportedly yet to secure a writer or network/streaming platform. Meyer is said to be involved creatively as Lionsgate plans to develop the show in-house, with co-president Erik Feig and Wyck Godfrey, who produced the "Twilight" film series, reported to be overseeing the project as executive producers. The company will shop the rights to the show once development ramps up and a writer has been confirmed.
Twilight: infinite recurrence
"Twilight" is the latest franchise to be reimagined for the streaming age, as companies turn to their biggest IP as a source of ongoing revenue. Warner Bros. Discovery CEO David Zaslav has made a big deal of brands, rather than stars or talent, being the focus, championing his company's "unparalleled portfolio of assets and IP" in a recent statement where he claimed the worst was over for the debt-laden studio. And it seems others are taking a similar tack. After two films back in 2010 and 2013, Disney announced it would be bringing a "Percy Jackson" series to its Disney+ platform in the near future. And now: "Twilight."
But it's the "Harry Potter" show that truly signals a tipping point for our nostalgia-fixated culture, as Zaslav seemingly orchestrates a particularly cynical attempt to leverage fan nostalgia as part of ongoing efforts to reduce his company's mountainous debt. This newly-announced "Twilight" show appears similarly cynical, especially considering the film saga only wrapped up in 2012. And while it could be argued that Hollywood has never done anything it doesn't think can make money, these streaming reboots have arrived too hastily to actually warrant their existence — especially since Erik Feig, who owns the rights to the "Twilight" book series, and Wyck Godfrey are exactly the same people behind the movies.
That said, both "Harry Potter" and "Twilight" occupy enough of a revered space in our culture that you could argue there's no reason why they couldn't be consistently reimagined in the same way as James Bond or Batman. The issue with these properties, however, is that whereas Bond and the Dark Knight have a long cultural history to draw from, both "Harry Potter" and "Twilight" are one story that, at this point, seems doomed to be forever retold.