The Twilight Obsession

Twilight

Ever since the first Twilight novel was published in October 2005, the book series – that covered three other novels in the course of three years, including New Moon in September 2006, Eclipse in August 2007 and Breaking Dawn in August 2008 – has gained an incredible amount of popularity all over the world and its commercial success is nearly insurmountable.

These four books have not only won numerous awards, among them the 2008 Children’s Book of the Year from the British Book Awards (for Breaking Dawn) but has also spent over 235 weeks on the New York Times Best Seller list for children’s books.

New Moon

The book series has sold over 100 million copies worldwide and has been translated into about 38 languages. The book series has also been adapted into one of the most popular and lucrative movie franchises in the world, grossing over $1 billion at the box office. With the third movie Eclipse opening tomorrow, it is a safe bet that that $1 billion mark will soar much, much higher.

With the good, though, comes the bad, and I mean that statement more in regards to the fan-frenzy, which can be much too over-the-top at times, and the media blitz that has surrounded the actors and actresses who have virtually become household names overnight from their appearances in the films.

Eclipse

Case in point: The tent village that developed outside the Nokia Theatre near downtown Los Angeles over the course of 5 plus days prior to the red carpet premiere of the Eclipse movie last week. Fans from all over the world seemed to descend on that area to catch a glimpse of the actors of the film as they walked what turned out to be the black (instead of a red) carpet.

Another issue is the overwhelming publicity of the movies and the over-exposure of the three primary actors – Robert Pattinson, Kristen Stewart and Taylor Lautner – by all forms of media; be they bloggers, newspapers, magazines, TV entertainment news outlets and even the tabloids.

After experiencing what I saw at the last two Comic Con events with fans camped out waiting for admittance to Hall H at the San Diego Convention Center simply to see the cast and crew for one panel and the wild, nearly uncontrollable fervor of those same fans, who ranged in age from young tots to the more senior fans, it was any wonder anything could even be heard during the panels at all.

To many in the entertainment industry, within the publicity machine and the hordes of fans all over the globe, too much isn’t enough; but for those who simply enjoyed the books and the movies, but didn’t get deeply invested into either realm or for those who didn’t care for either or for those who fell somewhere in between, all the Twilight obsession is just getting to be a little too much.

Regardless of where you fall in the above fan or non-fan levels, the end is not in sight anytime soon because of Eclipse opening tomorrow and the two-part adaptation of the final book Breaking Dawn that has yet to be released. The first part will open on November 18, 2011 and the second part will start shooting later this year.

So, where do you fall in the fan-levels? Are you a die-hard fan of the books and movies? Did you prefer one over the other? Are you a middle-of-the-road fan? Or, are you just so over the whole Twilight infanity? Please share your thoughts.