Twilight opened on Friday and made $70 million in a single day.
Let that sink in.
No movie in history had ever pulled a number that huge on a budget that tiny. Not one.
There were $200-million behemoths that couldn't even sniff $70 million on opening day. Hollywood execs needed smelling salts.
Movie Review Net broke the story first:
"While the Harry Potter trio limps toward boredom, an even cheesier movie just convinced every teenager in America to throw dignity out the window. They're obsessed with a girl who can't pick between a vampire and a werewolf, and somehow they're also in love with the monsters. We don't get it, but they do."
Over at Warner Bros., the mood was funeral-level. One exec ripped into Vinny: "You laughed at her. Called her delusional. Remind me again, genius—what's that opening number doing to your worldview right now?"
Vinny just stared at the screen, pale. "There's no way… How the hell did she turn a $25-million chick-flick into this?"
Because it wasn't over.
By Sunday night the weekend haul hit $70.6 million.
Joey just passed Mimi Leder's Deep Impact (1998, $41 million) and became the highest-opening female director of all time.
Seventy. Million. Dollars.
On twenty-five million budget.
The tracking firm Mintz was somewhere crying into his coffee; he'd kept his insane internal prediction quiet because he didn't want to look stupid. Too late.
He finally released his old internal report just to save face: CinemaScore A+, primary audience under 25.
Nobody cared anymore; the horse was out of the barn and on fire.
In a couple of days the movie had already made back its budget multiple times over.
Roger Ebert; the dean of American critics, the guy who'd given Juno four stars and Source Code four-and-a-half; dropped his review.
Two and a half stars.
"Powerful only if you're a 16-year-old girl or her grandmother."
"I once said Joey Grant would be this generation's great auteur. I may have to eat my words; she might also be this generation's great blockbuster director."
"No matter what the haters say, nothing is slowing this train down. For the fans, this film is pure hemoglobin."
The big trades; Variety, The Hollywood Reporter, the LA Times; all ran glowing think-pieces.
Audience sites were a war zone: half the reviews were teenage girls screaming about Henry Cavill, the other half were dudes calling it the dumbest thing ever made.
"Emma Watson perfected the art of looking pretty while feeling nothing."
"Henry is so hot I forgot how to blink."
"Plot makes zero sense and I would die for both of them."
Week two: $120 million worldwide.
The entire industry lost its collective mind.
The Hollywood Reporter gave it a six-page cover story:
"Hollywood; the dream factory; loves its rags-to-riches stories. Right now Twilight is writing the most insane one we've seen in years."
"This movie about a sparkly vampire and the girl who loves him just turned teenage girls into the most powerful demographic on the planet. 80% of the audience is female. 58% under 25."
Hollywood had spent decades sneering at "chick flicks" and pretending women didn't buy tickets.
Twilight just grabbed that stereotype by the throat and made it choke on $120 million in ten days.
Third week: $180 million worldwide.
Fourth week: barreling toward $250 million.
Every studio head in town was suddenly Joey's best friend. Phones were melting.
Some offered blank checks for the sequels. Some begged to buy the franchise outright. Actors who'd laughed at the auditions were now sliding into her DMs offering to play the werewolf for scale if it meant getting near this rocket ship.
Vampire-themed restaurants started popping up overnight. Teen girls in Forks, Washington became local celebrities. Henry Cavill couldn't walk down the street without causing a riot.
Directors; Oscar winners, first-timers, old lions; all quietly admitted the same thing: Joey saw the wave coming, stripped away every artsy instinct, and just shot the hell out of a beautiful, ridiculous, shamelessly romantic popcorn movie.
She put the camera on Henry Cavill's cheekbones for two straight hours and let teenage hormones do the rest.
No deeper meaning. No awards bait.
Just pretty people, rain, and feelings.
And it worked better than anyone thought possible.
Two months in, the movie sailed past $300 million and never looked back.
The headlines all said the same thing, just with increasing font sizes:
JOEY GRANT ISN'T A GENIUS.
SHE'S A MIRACLE.
AND WE'RE ALL LIVING IN HER WORLD NOW.
Love it or hate it, Twilight became the most polarizing, most profitable, most unstoppable box-office monster of its era.
And Joey?
She was just getting started.