Twilight May Not Do So Well?

Despite the massive amount of hype and anticipation surrounding the upcoming teen vampire film, Twilight, industry critics are beginning to ask if this level of anticipation isn't a bad thing and potentially damaging to the reception of audiences to the film.

Throughout the history of the movie industry, films that generated massive amounts of hype have tragically flopped, the movie studios selling the film on an idea and commercials rather than content. Typically, these films are also tremendously expensive and, after poor initial opening weekend reactions, flop spectacularly. See: Terminator 3.

Another example, last year's Speed Racer, garnered much attention in the lead-up to its release - huge merchandising, extensive commercial and marketing campaign, much touting that it was directed by the guys that did The Matrix - and it cost the studio over $120 million. Speed Racer, in the end, generated a paltry $44 million in ticket sales in both the U.S. and Canada.

Summit Entertainment, the studio behind Twilight, believes that ticket sales will go more directly in their favor; based on the best-selling books thought to be the next "Harry Potter" series, and engineering the plot to the much-beloved "vampire-meets-human-and-falls-in-love" theme to teenagers, Twilight has already earned a rabid following among would-be fans, both of the books and of the potential of the movie.

"The movie has already been directed in the mind's eye of the reader," said Eric Feig, president of production for Summit. "That's always a challenge, to try to live up to those expectations."

The fans of the franchise have already demonstrated a nearly vampiric fervor in anticipation for the movie. They camped out overnight this week to see the film's stars, Robert Pattinson and Kristen Stewart, at the movie's L.A. premiere. Last week, police were forced to shut down an event featuring Pattison at a San Francisco shopping center due to the development of a crowd tenfold what was anticipated - and it got ugly, with reports of bloodshed and broken noses - an appropriate enough harbinger of a new vampire film.