They are the ultimate million-dollar babes. Angelina Jolie and Brad
Pitt’s new twins, a girl and a boy born by Caesarean section on
Saturday, are barely a few hours old but already their first photos are
worth a fortune.
A
million dollars, two, five, 10 even 20 million? Exactly how much the
first "official" snaps will be sold for is not clear. But the figures
being bandied about make the eyes pop.
Nice Matin, the hometown
daily in the Riviera city in the south of France where Jolie gave
birth, put the twins’ worth at more than $11 million. It first broke
news of the birth and reported Sunday that the couple have sold the
rights for the first photo of their newly enlarged family to a U.S.
publication, which it did not name, and that the proceeds would go to
charity.
"I’ve never known a set of pictures to be worth this
amount of money," said Darryn Lyons, owner of Big Pictures, a celebrity
photo agency in London. He estimated that the twins’ official photos
will be worth between $15 million and $20 million.
The only other photos that "would possibly come that close is Britney Spears giving birth to an alien," he said.
Veteran
London-based celebrity publicist Max Clifford estimated that the first
photos could fetch 10 million pounds — roughly $20 million — "which
would make it the biggest baby deal ever."
"These kind of
pictures sell lots of magazines," he said. "It’s a 10-million-pound
gamble as to whether the ends justify the means. But obviously it’s a
very calculated risk because whoever lands the photos will have a lot
of experience with the popularity of mum and dad."
Cue the
paparazzi. They’ve been camped in Nice since shortly after Jolie’s
admission to the Lenval hospital there at the end of June, hoping for
possibly lucrative pictures of the glamourous Hollywood couple. For
them, the Brangelina twins are the biggest story of the year.
Never
mind that Jolie was ensconced on the fifth floor in a section of the
maternity ward that has been security-enhanced, that she was staying
out of sight behind the mirrored blue windows, and that the hospital
said that it had put up a special material on the windows of the
couple’s room that prevents telephoto lenses from peering through.
Paparazzi
still had hopes that they would get a valuable shot of Jolie — either
as an expectant or brand-new mother. And Pitt made an attainable
target: he was photographed coming and going from the hospital with
some of the couple’s four other children.
Clifford said he
didn’t think that paparazzi will be able to get any candid shots of the
babies and, if they do, he didn’t think they will have much impact on
the value of the official photos.
"If there are sneak shots,
they’re not going to be anything like the posed ones," he said. "All it
does is whet the appetite of those who want to see real quality
pictures."
Lyons of Big Pictures also did not think paparazzi will get candid shots.
"There’s
always a chance in this business. It’s down to who is good at what they
do," he said. "If you were to get a paparazzi set of photos you could
easily buy a little island to live on for the rest of your life."
"Certainly,
the feeding frenzy just goes to show that people talk about the
celebrity-obsessed world we live in. If publishers are willing to pay
up to 15 million, there are obviously plenty of people wanting to see
them."
"In the celebrity world, it seems to be the double second coming," he added.
Source:Yahoo