Twilight's Unbelievable Box Office Run Was A Painful Loss For Paramount Pictures

(Welcome to Tales from the Box Office, our column that examines box office miracles, disasters, and everything in between, as well as what we can learn from them.)

"I think 'Twilight' could be huge." Those were the words that were once said to be uttered by Paramount's former co-president of production Karen Rosenfelt, who helped turn the YA novel into a movie. While the movie ultimately wouldn't be made at Paramount, it turns out she was more right than anyone could have possibly predicted. In the end, Paramount's loss would turn into Summit Entertainment's ridiculous gain as the movie based on Stephenie Meyer's best-selling book would kick off not just a billion-dollar franchise, but an entire blockbuster YA craze.

It's easy to take for granted now, but the saga of Bella and Edward — which is now ingrained in popular culture — did not reek of success at the outset. Meyer was not an author by trade and had essentially no experience before writing "Twilight." Movies based on YA fantasy/sci-fi weren't regular cannon fodder for Hollywood franchises at that time, and having a woman at the helm of a blockbuster franchise was, sad to say, nearly unheard of. Against the perceived odds, the books and the films generated untold millions for all involved. Paramount may have missed out on a once-in-a-lifetime gold mine while Summit made a name for itself on the back of this vampiric love story.

In this week's Tales from the Box Office, in honor of the 15th anniversary of "Twilight," we're looking back at the movie, how Summit Entertainment scored the hit of a lifetime, how Paramount Pictures let that same hit slip through its fingers, what happened after the movie became a hit, and what lessons we can learn from it all these years later. Let's dig in, shall we?

At the time, it was rare for a woman to be handed the reins to a big movie, and Hollywood at large seemed to have little faith in the project. "An executive once told Hardwicke that her film might be interesting, at most, to about 400 girls in Salt Lake City," that same Vanity Fair piece explained. "They kept saying that to shoot the cost down, but it was a perfect storm at the time," the director said. As proof of just how little respect female filmmakers received at the time, Hardwicke was removed from the franchise and did not return to direct the sequels. But that's another story entirely.

Melissa Rosenberg ("Step Up") was hired to pen a new version of the screenplay. Hardwicke wanted it reworked and the idea was to stay more faithful to what Meyer put on the page. Rosenberg, speaking to Premiere in October 2008, had this to say about it:

"I was confident because my take was that it was a great book and that we should stick to the book as our bible. And I think that's what they were hoping for because there was actually an earlier version at Paramount that they threw out. I remember Stephenie saying it was a great script; it just had nothing to do with the book. And with a project like this, you can't really veer away from the book."

Indeed, Lord's script was a radical departure involving, among many other things, Bella escaping the FBI on a jet ski. It was the opposite of a faithful adaptation. "The earlier script that they had before was just pretty crazy. Bella was a track star in the first scene," Hardwicke, said to MediaBlvd Magazine in September 2008 "I read it and was like, 'This isn't the girl from the book that I love!' So, everybody wanted to make it as close to the book as possible. The book is long, so we can't have every scene, but we did the sweetened, condensed milk version."

Much like Pattinson, Kristen Stewart was a very promising up-and-comer at the time this movie was coming together. She had starred in films like "Panic Room" but had yet to truly break out. She has since become one of the most respected actors working today, earning an Oscar nomination for her role in "Spencer." But it's "Twilight" that put her on the A-list. It's also Stewart who helped to ensure that Pattinson would play Edward. Speaking with Vanity Fair in November 2008, she explained:

"I basically cast him. We did one day of auditions and a bunch of guys came in. Catherine Hardwicke, the director, afterwards was like, 'What do you think? This is such a hard choice.' I was like, 'Are you kidding me!? It's such an obvious choice!' It couldn't have been better. It was sort of perfect."

While much has been said of the movies in the years since their release, Stewart certainly didn't look down on the material when taking on the role. "I thought it was really ambitious, this portrayal of the ultimate, most epic love story that could be," the actress said in that same interview. The rest of the cast would be filled out with similarly promising newcomers as well as sturdy character actors including Anna Kendrick, Taylor Lautner, and Billy Burke.

It's also important to note that Summit, at the time, was independent and not yet owned by Lionsgate. The studio was trying to make bigger waves in Hollywood, and this project was viewed as a big step in that direction. "Youth-oriented movies are definitely a major part of our business," Erik Feig said to THR in 2007. "Willie Sutton said he robbed banks because that's where the money was, and you can say the same of these kinds of movies since young people are the ones who go to the movies every weekend." Little did Feig know that they were about to start a YA revolution.

Lionsgate chased that success with "The Hunger Games" in 2012, which itself spawned a $3 billion franchise. Much champagne was popped and many millions were spread around to those who were involved. Pattinson and Stewart became huge stars, Meyer became hilariously wealthy, and the most successful vampire franchise in cinematic history was born. It was a success on an almost hilariously massive scale. That did not go unnoticed by Paramount.

In a January 2009 report by The Wrap, it was revealed that the studio did not take losing the rights to "Twilight" very well. Mind you, this was before the sequels would go on to make nearly $3 billion worldwide. After the movie was released, a "witch hunt" ensued behind the scenes at Paramount in an attempt to find out who was responsible for letting the rights lapse. Studios frequently pass on projects only for them to get made elsewhere, but rarely do they become franchise-spawning hits of this size.

Karen Rosenfelt eventually left her post at Paramount but still believed strongly in "Twilight." She stayed on as a producer and tried to find the project a home after her former studio let it go. She even tried to strike a co-production deal between Paramount and Fox 2000, giving the studio yet another bite at the apple. It didn't work. That's when Rosenfelt met Feig and told him she thought "Twilight" could be huge. He believed her. The rest is history.

While Paramount eventually moved on, the ghosts of Edward and Bella would eventually circle back around. Wyck Godfrey, who was a producer on the "Twilight" films, was named Motion Picture Group President at Paramount. He would leave that role in 2020, but the fact that a key producer on the studio's white whale eventually took over as head of the movie division is a sweet bit of Hollywood poetry.