By Jay A. Fernandez and Borys Kit
Wed Aug 25, 2010 6:34am EDT
LOS ANGELES Hollywood Reporter - Hollywood has repeatedly peddled the apocalyptic threat from aliens, machines, comets, viruses and zombies, but who was watching the vampires?
Never exactly absent from the entertainment scene, those eternal bloodsuckers lately have infiltrated everything from big screens and little screens to bookstore shelves, clothing racks, download services, video games and video, record and jewelry stores.
The low-budget Fox/New Regency Twilight parody Vampires Suck has grossed $20 million in its first six days, and 5 million regular viewers are rabidly following HBOs newest hit, True Blood, as it swoops toward its season 3 finale September 12. Meanwhile, Justin Cronins The Passage, Stephenie Meyers Breaking Dawn and Charlaine Harris Dead and Gone hover on best-seller lists.
These charming, deadly immortals are everywhere. And as a result, theyre spilling as much green as red -- about $7 billion since the Twilight film franchise bowed less than two years ago, according to Hollywood Reporter estimates.
What started with some ancient, hysterical myths and a pair of spooky 19th century tales -- John Polidoris The Vampyre 1819 and Bram Stokers Dracula 1897 -- has bloomed into an entire inexhaustible industry.
By starting with one simple mythological creature thats been part of our literary universe for centuries, you can create a story that has it all: romance, horror, action, special effects, sex, epic love, wish fulfillment, romantic leading men, delicious bad-boy villains, female badasses, damsels in distress, death, monsters and, ultimately, the perfectly flawed hero who would give it all up if it meant they wouldnt have to spend eternity alone, says Julie Plec, writer and exec producer of the CW series The Vampire Diaries. It doesnt get more universal than that.
That gets to the bloody heart of it. Because theyre not specific to genre, vampires have the freedom to roam not just across mediums but from romance to horror to political commentary to humor. Their versatility is endless, swinging from chaste innocence to sexy violence, so the potential audience is everyone.
No other subject has sunk its teeth into pop culture quite so pervasively.
Lets start with the current king. Globally, the three Twilight films, released in 2008, 2009 and 2010, have a $1.76 billion haul at the global box office. The first two each grossed $160 million or so in home video sales the third hits Blu-ray/DVD in September. Thats more than $2 billion right there.
If the coming two installments of Breaking Dawn -- which Summit will release in November 2011 and November 2012 -- do similar business in theaters and the home-entertainment market, that would add another $1.7 billion to the coffers.
And thats just from the movie versions of Meyers colossally successful book series.
With Twilight riding herd, vampire movies have accounted for an average of 3% of total box office the past three years. So, for example, with New Moon, Underworld: Rise of the Lycans and Cirque du Freak: The Vampires Assistant totaling $356.7 million domestic in 2009, that amounted to 3.4% of the industrys $10.6 billion U.S. haul that year.
The other major flank of the current undead siege consists of Vampire Diaries and True Blood, HBOs most successful property since The Sopranos. Pinpointing the value of a monster television property is harder than driving a stake through the heart of a nasty beastie, but the longer a show is on the air at least up to seven seasons, the more money it is going to throw off in ancillaries.
Few TV shows make money upfront; almost all are in deficit until the aftermarket kicks in. Both shows have lots of life left in them and huge fan bases, so sources see buckets of cash eventually pouring into the coffers of the Diaries producers, Warner Bros. and CBS, which also happen to co-own the CW.
True Blood is harder to quantify because some of its value is in brand-building and bringing more subscribers to the premium cable service. Even so, estimates from two outside sources suggest that if the shows last five years on their respective outlets, domestic and foreign licensing arrangements could generate $100 million-$125 million from Vampire Diaries and $50 million-$75 million from Blood.
As for DVDs, nearly 1.3 million units of True Blood: The Complete First Season have been sold, and Season 2, which was released in May, has nearly reached a million. The first season of Vampire Diaries should do similar numbers after it hits stores next week. At an average of $40, that puts the estimated total for both series, plus catalog titles in the Buffy the Vampire Slayer vein, at $200 million for the home video market.
Vampires have super hearing, and their tastes might run to the baroque, but the music tie-ins bring in serious vampbucks, too. Sales of the first Twilight soundtrack total 2.6 million, with all scores and soundtracks related to the Meyer films nearing 5 million. Assuming $10 per unit, that adds another $50 million or so to the tab.
The book world, swarmed as it has been with vampires since Stoker popularized the myth, has gone bonkers with bloodsuckers since Meyer published Twilight in 2005. Her four Twilight novels, plus the Eclipse offshoot The Short Second Life of Bree Tanner, have sold in the neighborhood of 100 million copies.
This puts her in a league with Ian Fleming and Roald Dahl. Its difficult to quantify precisely, but at this point, Meyer likely has passed sales of previous bloodsucker queen Anne Rice, whose 12 vampire titles began with Interview With the Vampire in 1976.
Credit where credit is due: Book industry estimates indicate that before Rice created her first tale of Lestat, about 1,000 vampire titles had been published. Since 1976, some 41,000 have hit the shelves. Call her Author Zero of this particular pop culture movement.
Harris, who writes the Sookie Stackhouse/Southern Vampire series of novels on which True Blood is based, has sold something like 8 million copies since she launched the series in 2001. Book 10 was published in May, and all of them have spent time on the best-seller list since the HBO series became its most popular young show.
Among the millions-selling vampire-themed series flying out of bookstores today are L.J. Smiths The Vampire Diaries she also has the Night World series; the House of Night series from P.C. and Kristin Cast; The Immortals series from Alyson Noel; and the Vampire Academy series from Richelle Mead. Hollywood heavyweight Guillermo del Toro and author Chuck Hogan are part way through publishing their book trilogy The Strain from HarperCollins.
This is just the tip of the fang; there are scores of vampire titles on the shelves at the moment, and more are coming.
Vampire books are just growing, said one agent who sold a vampire book this year. There is no one area in which its stagnating. It goes from fiction to young adult fiction to genre fiction -- they are king.
Selling, say, 120 million copies at an average of $13 a copy -- splitting the difference between paperback and hardcover -- puts the vampire-book total in the $1.6 billion range.
The merchandising spun off from the most popular of these properties is equally pervasive -- and lucrative. The retail juggernaut tied to vampires easily clears a half-billion dollars.
Steven Ekstract at License Global magazine estimates that Twilight alone has generated nearly $500 million in merchandise. HBO has its run of True Blood merch rolling out as well, with the Tru Blood drink in particular selling well. Naturally, Halloween also benefits from the vampire craze just as sales of round-rimmed glasses skyrocketed off Harry Potter, with some estimates for the sale of vampire drag and paraphernalia ranging as high as $100 million.
No, the porn industry has not let this little phenomenon go by without its stamp. True Blood is parodied by New Sensations Tru: A XXX Parody; Devils Film has its series of This Isnt Twilight: The XXX Parody for all three films; and Sex Line Sinema has its take on the CW show, The Vampire Sex Diaries -- They dont crave blood. They crave you. Precise numbers are hard to come by.
Vampire-related video games such as Castlevania and Legacy of Kain have sold millions of units. There are dozens on the market, and at $40 a pop, thats another $200 million or so.
The vampire deluge shows no sign of slowing -- at this point, the phenomenon seems as deathless as its main characters. Matt Reeves Let Me In and Screen Gems 3D graphic-novel adaptation Priest will hit theaters in the coming year to join the first of the two-part Breaking Dawn finale.
Among the high-profile film projects in development are the adaptation of Elizabeth Kostovas The Historian at Sony, the adaptation of Cronins The Passage at Fox 2000, Dracula Year Zero at Universal and the adaptation of Castlevania at Rogue Pictures. Amy Heckerling is putting together Vamps; the Underworld franchise plans a fourth installment in 3D; and a horror film called The Last Voyage of Demeter, inspired by Stokers original telling, is in the works.
And everyones looking for the next Twilight. For example, U.K.-based Dan Films Severence has put out an ad seeking completed feature-length vampire scripts for teen/young adult audiences. In other words, a film for the Twilight age group.
Apparently, the only thing more ravenous than a hungry vampire is his audience.