THEY are the ultimate million-dollar babies. Angelina Jolie and Brad Pitt's new twins, a girl and a boy, are only a few hours old, but already their first photos are worth a fortune.
A million dollars? Two? Ten? 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.
The babies were delivered by Caesarean section on Saturday night
. Jolie's obstetrician, Dr Michel Sussman, said they were named Vivienne Marcheline and Knox Leon.
Nice Matin, the daily newspaper in the French Riviera city where Jolie gave birth, put the first photo's worth at more than $11 million (£5.5 million). It reported the couple had sold the rights for a photo of their newly enlarged family to a publication in the United States, 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 the official photos would 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.
The veteran celebrity publicist Max Clifford estimated the first photos could fetch $20 million, "which would make it the biggest baby deal ever". He said: "These kind of pictures sell lots of magazines. It's a $20 million 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 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 with beefed-up security, that she was staying out of sight behind the mirrored blue windows, and that the hospital said it had put up special material on the windows of the couple's room that prevents telephoto lenses from peering through. The paparazzi still had hopes they would get a shot of Jolie – either as an expectant or new mother.
And Pitt made an attainable target: he was photographed coming and going with some of the couple's four other children.
Clifford said he didn't think the paparazzi would be able to get any candid shots of the babies and, if they did, he didn't think they would 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 said:
"There's always a chance in this business. It's down to who is good at what they do. 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. If publishers are willing to pay up to $15 million, there are obviously plenty of people wanting to see them."
