‘Twilight’ animated series release window, plot, and more

Though it has only been a decade since the greatest franchise of our time has ended, it’s time to bring it back. Like Max’s reboot of the Harry Potter franchise, Twilight is also on deck for a new adaptation.

The first film of the Twilight movies premiered in the year of our lord, 2008, with Kristen Stewart and Robert Pattinson in the iconic roles of Bella Swan and Edward Cullen. After moving to the rainy Pacific Northwest town of Forks, Washington, our young heroine becomes enamored with the pale and strange Edward. One thing leads to another and of course, he turns out to be a vampire. Not the normal kind, though. This sort doesn’t have fangs or human flesh. Their skin is like marble and they subscribe to a diet of animal blood. Let the romance begin!

The five films in the franchise adhered to the odd choices of the books for the most part, from vampire baseball, to imprinting on a baby (don’t get us started.) However, the source material has stuck with fans. It was only a matter of time before it got a new adaptation. Variety has announced that Lionsgate is considering an animated series, and we are dying to know the details.

What is the release window?

Studio executives will always have their eyes on the next cash cow, and Twilight never stopped being successful. The recent renaissance is proof of that, which has led to talk of a new series. During a Q&A at the Morgan Stanley conference, Lionsgate vice chairman, Michael Burns, expressed a tentative plan for the vampire franchise.

“We’re going to go out with the ‘Twilight’ series, an animated series, I think there’ll be a lot of interest in that.”

As it is in its beginning stages, there is no official release date yet. But true to Burns’ estimation, fans are surely going to be interested in anything Twilight-related if and when it gets released. This update also causes a lot of speculation on what the plot will be. Is this the official adaptation that will introduce a new generation of fans to the wild world of Meyer’s Mormon-coded vampires?

What is the plot?

There is no confirmation of the plot of this new series. However, there is a lot of source material that a show could pull from. Perhaps the eternal love story of Edward and Bella is strong enough to land in an animated medium. But it would be even more interesting to see other stories developed. Meyer wrote a novella after the events of Eclipse, entitled The Short Second Life of Bree Tanner. It follows the titular character who was a newborn in the army of the adversarial vampire, Victoria (Bryce Dallas Howard). Despite being ultimately guiltless, the Volturi still decide to punish Bree.

But even more fascinating is the gender-bent book Life and Death: Twilight Reimagined, which was supposed to prove there was no misogyny in the original text. (Spoilers, it failed.) And then there is always the book from Edward’s perspective, Midnight Sun. Since Edward’s story is mostly cerebral, this would look a lot like the original Twilight in a television medium. There are many options for putting a twist on a fan-favorite story, but we will still have to wait a little longer for more details.