Business

‘Twilight’ express

Summit Entertainment, the film studio behind the “Twilight” franchise, is prowling for deals.

The studio is about to put Morgan Stanley on retainer to help it sniff out growth opportunities — which could include making a run at Metro-Goldwyn-Mayer or The Weinstein Co., The Post has learned.

Summit’s move comes as Hollywood braces itself for a consolidation wave stemming from financial belt-tightening at the conglomerates that own the major studios, Disney’s recent $4 billion buy of Marvel Entertainment, and restructuring initiatives at MGM and TWC.

Summit, according to a source close to the situation, believes Morgan Stanley is in a position of relative strength and can be “aggressively opportunistic” regarding deals.

A second source said that Stuart Epstein, global head of Morgan Stanley’s media mergers and acquisitions group, would be Summit’s point person at the bank.

Epstein and representatives for Summit could not be reached for comment.

According to both sources, Morgan Stanley’s mandate is to find ways for Summit to expand. That could be achieved in many ways, including raising more funding, bringing in a financial partner to recapitalize the studio or through mergers and buys.

But strategic purchases are likely to play a big part in Summit’s plans, with MGM, TWC, and Lionsgate mentioned as possible targets on the studio side. MGM and TWC have huge debt loads and tiny cash flow, which makes them vulnerable to takeover, and TWC is purging a few dozen employees.

Lionsgate, meanwhile, is dealing with activist investor Carl Icahn and is considered too small to be a standalone, publicly traded studio.

Summit is also likely to pursue smaller deals for film library assets or overseas independent production companies, these sources said. The studio, which was formed in April 2007 and has access to more than $1 billion in funding from Merrill Lynch and a consortium of investors, could also build or buy its way into television and online-content production. Summit already has an output deal for its movies in place with Showtime.

Known primarily as a seller of international distribution rights, Summit gained notoriety on the production side by scooping up the rights to Stephenie Meyer’s teenage vampire series, “Twilight,” after Viacom’s Paramount Pictures relinquished them.

The first Twilight movie, which cost only $37 million to make, grossed nearly $400 million at the worldwide box office and made teen idols out of stars Robert Pattinson and Kristen Stewart.

Industry observers estimate that Twilight-related consumer products, excluding books, generated nearly $500 million in revenue worldwide, of which Summit receives a high single- to low double-digit percentage.

The second installment in the Twilight franchise, “New Moon,” opens on Nov. 20. The third, “Eclipse,” will be released in June 2010.

Summit is more than the “Twilight” franchise, however. The studio scored a hit with the sci-fi movie “Knowing,” which grossed $155 million worldwide on a production budget of $58 million. Another Summit production, “The Hurt Locker,” is being talked about as an awards contender and the first film in the studio’s reinvention of the cult series “Highlander” is on track for a 2011 release.