It would require you paying for my admission, a pretzel, a large drink, and maybe a pony.

[bedii]

I was interested enough in the previews for Twilight running at the San Diego Comic Con to ask around and find it was based on a series of books by Stephenie Meyer. I was wondering about doing a review of the film when it came out and if I should read the books first when I ran into a series of posts and wonderful cartoons by Shinga, which made it clear

Comments

[scarlettina]

...me packed in a theater full of tweens and their mothers...

I'm giggling, no question about it.

...the studio's marketing team hasn't been able to figure out an approach to get a male within twelve square miles of a movie house showing this one.

I find it hard to believe they'd even try. The female tween infatuation with vampires is so alien a concept to any male viewer that it's not in the same universe as any male viewer. It would be like trying to market Sex and the City to the same audience: shoes, clothes, shoes, shoes, and oh, by the way, did I mention shoes? It's just a silly idea.

[bedii]

I'm giggling, no question about it.

As you know, I Live To Serve...

I find it hard to believe they'd even try.

Oh, they have been trying, no matter how silly: the Times business article described an "action scenes" trailer for men. (Talk about the stink of desperation...) Reminds me of when a studio marketing team did testing and decided that no woman in America would watch a movie called Rocket Boys no matter how highly praised it was and renamed the film October Skies so both sexes could ignore it equally. Or when a different team decided to rename The Madness of King George III as The Madness of King George because nobody likes going to a sequel if they've missed the first two installments. No, I Am Not Making These Up.

The female tween infatuation with vampires is so alien a concept to any male viewer that it's not in the same universe as any male viewer.

Which may be why Paramount had it in development and then gave it a pass--I'm sure there's some bloodletting (pardon the pun) going on over there about that decision.