Tuesday, October 11th. Just another random weekday in America, the one where most theater chains do discount tickets.
Also known as the day a little low-budget supernatural romance called Twilight quietly opened on 4,070 screens nationwide.
It was a movie based on a bestselling YA novel, so yeah, the book fans showed up. A decent chunk of them, anyway.
It was cold, it was pouring rain, and most people would rather stay dry on the couch than drag themselves to the multiplex. Everyone in the industry figured the week after The Fast and the Furious: Tokyo Drift would be a dead zone, ticket-sales-wise.
Yet if you walked past any theater that Tuesday, you'd see something weird: long lines of (mostly) teenage girls and twenty-something women, plus a bunch of boyfriends who looked like they'd lost a bet, all clustered under the Twilight poster.
The ticket sellers had no clue they were about to live through history. They just knew it was rare to see this many women excited about a movie. Like, ever.
Hollywood had basically ignored female audiences for years. You might go twelve whole months without a single film that felt like it was made for women. Most chicks only showed up when their boyfriend picked the movie.
So the fact that women were voluntarily marching into theaters on a rainy Tuesday? That was… different.
A lot of them were there with low expectations: "Eh, nothing else is playing, I already saw Tokyo Drift, guess I'll check this out." Some came for the hot guy on the poster. A bunch were die-hard Hermione stans ready to support Emma Watson in anything.
Inside one theater, two ushers were killing time between rushes.
"Hey, you snuck in to see some of that Twilight thing yet?"
"Yeah, first ten minutes. It's… actually kinda good? The dude playing the vampire is tall, broody, stupid-hot when he smiles."
"Sounds more like a teen soap than a fantasy flick."
"Totally. It's super slow-burn. They haven't even kissed yet and we're an hour in."
In the auditorium, the whispers started.
"Okay, those tree-climbing effects are ROUGH. We've got 2006 money, not ILM money."
"But the locations are gorgeous, that meadow scene where he finally tells her he's a vampire? The way the light hits the grass? Swoon city."
"Girl, they've been eye-flirting for ninety minutes. I've seen paint dry faster."
"Shh, that's the point! It's romantic tension. You wouldn't get it."
By the time the credits rolled, something wild had happened.
The audience, mostly women, walked out looking… different. Like they'd just fallen in love for the first time. Giddy. Flushed. Texting their group chats at the speed of light.
Pink bubbles practically floating above their heads.
One screening down, thousands to go.
Day one of release, and nobody outside those theaters had any idea a bomb had just gone off.
The big dogs that weekend were supposed to be Tokyo Drift (still cruising on fumes) and Miami Vice. Twilight? Cute little also-ran.
Then the tracking guys showed up.
Mintz, the same analyst who'd nailed Juno and Source Code, dragged his son to the multiplexes to collect exit-poll data like always.
His kid was ribbing him the whole time. "Dad, you've got the biggest crush on Joey Grant. You jump on her movies faster than anyone."
Mintz ignored him, hunched over his laptop, punching in numbers.
He had a complicated relationship with Joey at this point. Her wins made him look like a genius… but she kept outperforming even his wildest guesses.
75% female audience. 55% under 25. This wasn't just female-driven; this was a full-on estrogen avalanche.
He'd never seen numbers like this. Ever.
He remembered Pretty Woman, Bridget Jones, those rare rom-com explosions, but this felt different. Bigger. Hungrier.
He fed the final variables into the system and hit ENTER.
Opening-day prediction: $7 million.
His son glanced over and literally dropped the bagel out of his mouth onto his shoe.
"Seven million? On a Tuesday? In the rain? Dad, Tokyo Drift only did 2.6 yesterday!"
Mintz frowned, re-ran the numbers. Same result.
He extended the model out two days: $35.7 million.
That paid the entire production budget back before the weekend even started.
He pushed it to the full first weekend.
$70.6 million.
The system spat out a little note: Second-highest non-summer opening weekend in history (behind only Harry Potter and the Goblet of Fire).
Mintz stared at the screen so long his eyes watered.
He started drafting the usual congratulatory email to Joey… then stopped.
No way.
This had to be a glitch. The algorithm was broken. It needed new code, new parameters, something.
Because if these numbers were real?
Twilight wasn't a breakout hit.
It was a once-in-a-generation, billion-dollar-franchise-launching, culture-shifting monster.
And there was no way some rookie director had just turned a $37 million vampire romance into the next Harry Potter.
No way.
So he did something he'd never done before.
He buried the prediction.
No press release. No email to Joey. Nothing.
Because some things were too insane to say out loud.
Not yet.
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