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The Daily Beast examines the size of “America’s Vampire Economy” and it’s GVP, Gross Vampire Profit. Duff McDonald’s article covers everything from paparazzi to Halloween costumes, but below are some excerpts concerning Twilight, that I though you might find interesting. Take note how much that picture of Rob and Kristen holding hands the other day was worth!
Gross Vampire Product
by Duff McDonald
With this week week’s release of The Twilight Saga: New Moon, we got to thinking: Just how big is this burgeoning vampire economy?
Twilight is the Big Daddy of vampire brands, a billion-dollar plus phenomenon starring Robert Pattinson (the guy on the cover of Vanity Fair this month) and Kristen Stewart (the girl on the current cover of the New York Times’ Arts & Entertainment section). The series is PG-13, vampires for teenagers. It’s the young love fantasy, about the girl who doesn’t quite fit in who gets the guy who everyone else wants… who also happens to be a vampire.
As anyone who knows a female teen already knows, the Twilight movies, starring Brit heartthrob Pattinson and the already-jaded Stewart. The first installment of the series pulled in $380 million at the global box office and an additional $168 million in U.S. DVD sales. (The tally was high enough that the movie’s director, Catherine Hardwicke, landed a spot in the Guinness Book of World Records with the top-grossing movie by a female director.) Assuming that the November 20 release of The Twilight Saga: New Moon will have comparable results, Twilight is a $500 million-a-year movie franchise, as long as author Stephenie Meyer can keep pumping out books beyond the four she’s already written.
Lastly, there are the tabloids. While vampires are no Britney Spears when it comes to gossip coverage, the stars of Twilight have still graced the covers of People, US Weekly, OK!, Life & Style, and Star magazine a total of 39 times in the past year. Giving the vampires 25 percent credit for newsstand sales, that delivers a tally of $21.5 million in just a single year.
And while an average shot of Robert Pattinson, Kristen Stewart, or even Taylor Lautner doesn’t sell for much, Brandy Navarre, co-owner of the paparazzi agency X17, argues that a photo that confirms the are-they-or-aren’t-they romance of Pattinson and Stewart could be highly lucrative, particularly if it’s exclusive. Last week, X17 snapped shots of the two supposed lovebirds holding hands, which they sold for a total of $40,000—half to online outlets in the U.S., half to one magazine in Australia. Call the paparazzi a $5 million annual business.
THE BOTTOM LINE:
The gross vampire product is a blood-curdling $771.5 million annually. A good amount below the GDP of the real Transylvania ($70 billion). But a whole lot more than the GDP of Twilight’s home, Forks, Washington ($126 million).
Read the entire article here.
Related posts: - Twilight Stars Make Top 40 Moneymakers List
- Eclipse beats Last Airbender
- “New Moon” Trailer Breaks Sets Online Records
- New Moon Gross Sales Worldwide Over $570 Million
- The Twilight Economy -Will New Moon Save Hot Topics Again?
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