[Cheers to Pablo for making this Breaking Dawn banner. Repeat, it is FAN MADE!]

A new article from Variety suggests that Summit has a delimma in dealing with production of a film version of the fourth book in the series, Breaking Dawn. Mainly, there is the money issue if they choose to make two more films, instead of one. In addition, they have figure out what director will be involved (Chris Weitz is a fan favorite).

They will likely have to cut a few big checks if they decided, as rumored, to split Stephenie Meyer’s final “Twilight” novel, “Breaking Dawn,” into two pictures. Sources said Summit has set Melissa Rosenberg — who wrote the first three films — to finish the series, but Summit has to clear several hurdles before Rosenberg learns how many more scripts she’ll write.

One of those hurdles is figuring out whether “New Moon” director Chris Weitz will respond favorably to overtures from the film company and the cast to shoot two more films, back to back.

Summit execs would not comment, but multiple sources said the company wants to go the two-film route, which means reopening negotiations and securing approval from the author. It also means making new deals with a principal cast that is only locked up for four films. If “Breaking Dawn” becomes two pictures, all of the key cast members will get fat raises, and the three principals — Robert Pattinson, Kristen Stewart and Taylor Lautner — could land paydays in the eight-figure range.

Read more here.

My guess is that the payoff at the box office will be big enough to warrent the extra expenditure on the front end.