Twilight Spinoffs After Twilight Sequels?

With New Moon wrapping up production and its rushed release set for this November and with Eclipse beginning production next month, which will open next summer, AND with Breaking Dawn coming quickly after that, what happens next?

The four (finished) books of Stephenie Meyer’s Twilight Saga will have all been translated to the big screen. All will be rushed out within the next two years with nothing left to go on. That is of course, assuming Meyer doesn’t hurry up and finish that fifth book, Midnight Sun, which she stopped working on after an incomplete draft of it leaked online.

However, that book is just the first one all over again from the perspective of Edward as opposed to Bella so it may not be too much new – it’s more of a companion novel. What if fans want more?

Well, the one thing holding Summit Entertainment back is the lack of more books to translate to the silver screen. Or is it?

It now seems that the possibility of spinoffs is very real and come the end of the four current movies, we could be seeing more milkage of the cash cow coming our way in the form of entirely original screenplays based on the world set up by Meyer.

In a brief interview with Radar Online at the 36th Annual Vision Awards in Beverly Hills this weekend, Twilight producers Wyck Godfrey and Greg Mooradian revealed that they are entirely open to the idea of spinoffs after the main four films have been completed:

“Stay tuned. I think if our movies do as well as the first did all possibilities are out there. But right now we need to finish what we have and finish Stephenie’s vision as best we can and then let’s see where the audience demands us to go from there.”

If the movies do well, which is not unexpected, there’s no doubt that they’ll want to cash in on the built-in fanbase’s desire for more. As we start seeing the sequels roll out, there will likely be aspects of the world and/or characters that become stand-out fan favorites and that would be ripe for the making of a spinoff movie(s) to extend the franchise. We’re living in the age of franchise extensions through sequels and remakes so this is not out of the realm of possibility.

The films have a relatively low budget and are being made in mere months. Despite this being very evident in the trailer for New Moon, the movie should make a ton similar (or more) than Twilight did last fall so there’s no reason to stop assuming the sequels perform well.

One idea proposed during the interview is that of a movie centered in on the Volturi vampire guild, which is led by Aro, played by the incredibly talented Michael Sheen. That guy can lead any film in my mind and I can see a movie moving forward on that angle involving the many new characters we’ll be introduced to this Fall in The Twilight Saga: New Moon.

In the novels, the Volturi rule the vampire world and play a major part in New Moon but not so much in Eclipse (could be slightly different in the film). Some other members of the Volturi include Jane, Heidi, Marcus and Caius who are being played by Dakota Fanning, Noot Seear, Christopher Heyerdahl and Jamie Campbell Bower respectively.

Do Twilighters want more films that extend past Stephenie Meyer’s work? If so, in what should they be about?

The Twilight Saga: New Moon opens this November 20, 2009 and The Twilight Saga: Eclipse is scheduled to release early next summer on June 30, 2009. Expect Breaking Dawn not long after.

Sources: Radar Online, The Geek Files