Twilight (2008)
- To accurately portray their role in Twilight, Kristen Stewart spent weeks conducting hands-on research and rehearsing directly with director Catherine Hardwicke.
- Despite initial studio skepticism, Twilight went on to gross over $412,000,000 worldwide.
Twilight is a 2008 American romantic fantasy film directed by Catherine Hardwicke, based on Stephenie Meyer's 2005 bestselling novel. The film follows Bella Swan, played by Kristen Stewart, a teenager who moves to the perpetually overcast small town of Forks, Washington, where she falls deeply in love with Edward Cullen, played by Robert Pattinson, a mysterious and impossibly beautiful classmate who turns out to be a 108-year-old vampire struggling to resist his desire for Bella's blood. Their forbidden romance is complicated by a nomadic vampire tracker named James who becomes obsessed with hunting Bella.
Twilight was a cultural phenomenon that transcended its teen audience to become a defining media event of the late 2000s, generating passionate devotion and equally passionate derision in roughly equal measure. The "Team Edward" versus "Team Jacob" debate โ the latter referring to Taylor Lautner's werewolf character introduced more prominently in subsequent films โ dominated pop culture discourse. Robert Pattinson and Kristen Stewart's off-screen romance added tabloid fuel to the franchise's already enormous public profile.
Made on a modest $37 million budget, Twilight earned $407 million worldwide and launched a five-film franchise that collectively grossed over $3.3 billion. The film's influence extended far beyond box office numbers, reigniting the paranormal romance genre in both publishing and film, and demonstrating the enormous commercial power of the young female audience demographic that Hollywood had long underserved.
