The Twilight Saga is a series of five romance fantasy films from Summit Entertainment based on the four novels by the American author Stephenie Meyer. The films star Kristen Stewart, Robert Pattinson, and Taylor Lautner. The series has grossed over 3.3 billion in worldwide receipts and consists, to date, of five motion pictures. The first installment, Twilight, was released on November 21, 2008. The second installment, New Moon, followed on November 20, 2009, breaking box office records as the biggest midnight screening and opening day in history, grossing an estimated 72.7 million. The third installment, Eclipse, was released on June 30, 2010, and was the first Twilight film to be released in IMAX.
Twilight was in development for approximately three years at Paramount Picturess MTV Films, during which time a screen adaptation differing significantly from the novel was written. For example, the script transformed Bella into a star athlete. Stephenie Meyer stated that there was some debate in allowing the movie to be made because of the negative or positive outcome of the movie compared to the book, They could have put that earlier movie out, called it something else, and no one would have known it was Twilight The idea of seeing a scene converted correctly, specifically the meadow scene, convinced Meyer to sell the rights. In seeing the script, she was frightened that she had made the wrong decision. When Summit Entertainment reinvented itself as a fullservice studio in April 2007, it successfully acquired the rights to the novel. Erik Feig, President of Production at Summit Entertainment, guaranteed a close adaptation to the book. The company perceived the film as an opportunity to launch a franchise based on the success of Meyers book and its sequels. Meyer felt that Summit was open to letting her be a part of the film. Catherine Hardwicke was hired to direct the film, and soon afterward, Melissa Rosenberg was selected to be the films structural base as the writer of the film.Rosenberg developed an outline by the end of August and collaborated with Hardwicke on writing the screenplay during the following month. She was a great sounding board and had all sorts of brilliant ideas.... Id finish off scenes and send them to her, and get back her notes. Because of the impending WGA strike, Rosenberg worked fulltime to finish the screenplay before October 31. In adapting the novel for the screen, she had to condense a great deal. Some characters were left out, and others were combined. Our intent all along was to stay true to the book, Rosenberg explained, and it has to do less with adapting it word for word and more with making su
Source: Wikipedia