Summit Entertainment

Summit Entertainment's logo.

Summit Entertainment is an independent American film studio which was formed in 2007. It is the film studio that is produced Twilight.

History

Summit was originally founded in the early 1990s and launched in 1996 by Patrick Wachsberger, Bob Hayward and David Garrett under the name Summit Entertainment LP as a production, distribution, and sales organization. In 2006, it became a fully independent film studio, Summit Entertainment, with the addition of Rob Friedman, a former executive at Paramount Pictures.[2] The new company added major development, production, acquisitions, marketing and distribution branches with a financing deal led by Merrill Lynch and other investors giving it access to over $1 billion in financing.[3] After a string of flops including P2, Penelope, Never Back Down and Sex Drive, Summit finally found success in November 2008 with the release of Twilight, a teen romance about vampires based on the best-selling book of the same name by Stephenie Meyer that made $383,530,753 worldwide. In the spring of 2009, Summit released Knowing, the company's second movie to open #1 at the box office and made $182,492,056 worldwide. Recent films for Summit include Next Day Air ($10,027,047), The Hurt Locker ($15,218,783 worldwide), an action-thriller war-themed film directed by Kathryn Bigelow which has received two 2009 Independent Spirit Award nominations, the animated film Astro Boy, the teenage horror Sorority Row ($14,826,298 worldwide), and the highly anticipated New Moon. In 2008, Summit ranked 8th place among the studios, with a gross of $226.5 million, almost entirely because of the release of Twilight.[4] And in 2009, Summit is currently ranked 7th among studios with a gross of $453.2.[5] In the weekend spanning November 21-23, 2009, Summit Entertainment's sequel to the runaway hit "Twilight," titled "The Twilight Saga: New Moon" also based on the popular novel by Stephenie Meyer, broke box office records in its first weekend and opened at #1, grossing $142,839,137 in its first weekend, posting the third all-time best weekend box office figure, third only to Columbia Pictures' "Spider-Man 3'" ($151,116,516) and Warner Bros. Pictures' Batman film "The Dark Knight" ($158,411,483.) CinemaScore audiences rated "New Moon" with an A-. The third chapter of the Twilight saga titled "Eclipse" has already been greenlit by Summit and was filmed in August-October 2009, with a release date set for June 30, 2010.

Notable releases

• New Moon (2009)
• Twilight (2008)
• Resident Evil: Extinction (2007)
• Sahara (2005)
• Wrong Turn (2003)