~Underworld Awakening film franchise is a Box Office Winner~

Let’s take a look at the figures from the Underworld film series and see if it has any hope of a future. It began a very low budget film that earned over four times the budget. This makes it very successful for investors, but only because of the extremely low cost of making the film. Many low budget films often run around $40 million and it is a wonder that it turned out well enough to draw an audience.

Underworld Evolution, the second film produced at $50 million is now hitting the ranks of a low budget film and the film did not draw that much more at the box office. The return on investment dramatically changed and must have drawn caution from the producers and we see that they backed off on the production bringing it back to $35 million.

The third film is the “origin” story and takes place before the other films. Kate Beckinsale who had played the lead in the other films does not appear this time and we can see the lowest box office receipts up to this point. However it earned three times the budget and earned a respectable return.

The forth film must have had the investors a bit nervous as it was decided to bring Kate Beckinsale, as Selene, back into the lead role and give the franchise one more roll of the dice. Only three films were planned from the beginning; however the financial success must have indicated that a big budget 3D film might do well. The $70 million was well spent as the specialeffects; mainly the ferocious attacks of the Lycan (werewolves) clans are very well done.

Will there be more films?

Nothing has yet been reported and that could very well be the end of it and time for a fresh idea. The vampire vs. werewolf concept has been around and rehashed so many times that one wonders if there is anything new that can be done. We do know that the “Twilight Saga” is the big winner in the market place and its hook was that it is a modern day soap operas’ teenage approach to the subject. Anyone who really understands this knows that all of this is “Romeo and Juliet”, then “West Side Story” and the gangs in those tales are replaced with the vampires and werewolves.

If a great script came along, it is possible that this franchise could reappear. We’ll keep our eyes open and may very well be rewarded soon with a fifth film.