LOS ANGELES • Twilight is coming back from the dead with a live concert that will tour the world.

Movie studio Lionsgate announced that the vampire book and movie romance franchise that had millions of hearts swooning is being adapted for an international live-to-film event.

The Twilight In Concert tour will feature a full orchestra performing the original movie score timed to a screening of the first of the five Twilight films.

The Twilight movie franchise (2008 to 2012), based on the best-selling novels by Stephenie Meyer, tells the story of American teenager Bella Swan, who falls in love with mysterious Edward Cullen, a vampire.

The five movies took some US$3.3 billion (S$4.5 billion) at the global box office and launched the careers of actors Kristen Stewart, Robert Pattinson and Taylor Lautner.

Meyer's four novels have sold more than 120 million copies worldwide.

Lionsgate said in a statement that it hopes the concert tour would "continue to expand the world of Twilight and introduce it to legions of new fans around the world".

The tour will begin in Brazil in August and be followed by stops in Australia and Britain.

Concerts based on movies and television shows have become a popular way of extending entertainment franchises, with television series Game Of Thrones (2011 to present) and movie series The Hunger Games (2012 to 2015), Star Wars (1977 to present) and Harry Potter (2001 to 2011) all finding large global audiences.

REUTERS