Numbers Don't Lie

I am finding myself as obsessed with Twilight as are its millions of teenage female fans. Psychologically, that's a tad worrisome, but I find myself unable to move on to writing about other vampire movie related issues.

Twilight's increasingly impressive box office figures and the wildly mixed reviews it's received have got me to thinking about whether the box office success of vampire films - and possibly horror films in general - rely more or less on what critics have to say than do other sorts of movies.

First, let's look at some numbers. Twilight's opening weekend gross was nearly $70 million dollars, according to www.boxofficemojo.com, making it the most successful opening weekend for any vampire movie since 1978. That figure is close to the lifetime grosses for such vampire movies as Bram Stoker's Dracula ($82,522,790) and Blade II ($82,348,319.) As of this weekend's box office figures, three weeks after its opening, Twilight has grossed $138,402,068, which makes it the most successful vampire movie EVER.

I feel I need to make a disclaimer before I go on. I spend my days working with journalists and bloggers, encouraging them to cough up good reviews of music from artists that I represent. I have nothing but the greatest respect for each and every one of those writers, who often work for little or no pay, and who have to fend the dozens of emails from PR people who clamor for their attention. Still, I've noticed that there are often disconcerting discrepancies between CDs that garner critical acclaim and the sales figures for those CDs. I don't understand that inverse correlation. But I know that without those reviews sales would be even lower, and I see the value in the exchange. It doesn't seem to work that way with movies in general, and with vampire films specifically.

Sure, the New Yorker's review of Twilight said, "the picture delivers." But Entertainment Weekly, surely a more popular read among Twilight's core audience, called it "repetitive and a tad sodden, too prosaic to really soar." Roger Ebert gave it two and a half out of four stars, and both Variety's and the the Associated Press' reviewers grudgingly coughed up two out a possible five stars.

Compare those reviews to the ones for Let the Right One In, which grossed $49,295 its opening weekend, and has earned a mere $1,000,653 since opening a month before Twilight. Ebert gave the Swedish vampire flick three and a half stars, and www.Cinemoose.com called it "not only the best vampire movie of the year....but also one of the year's best movies."

Of course, the press leading up to the release of Twilight (fashion spreads in Vogue and Vanity Fair, covers of Entertainment Weekly, interviews on the Today Show and the Tonight Show, etc.) coupled with the already rabid fan base for Stephanie Meyer's novels more or less guaranteed the box office success of the movie. I think further exploration of the box office numbers for such past vampire movies as the Blade trilogy, Interview with the Vampire, Bram Stoker's Dracula and Van Helsing in comparison with the critical reaction to those films might provide a more comprehensive take on the topic of this post. Stay tuned.