DIRECTOR OF “THE READER” TO DIRECT “BREAKING DAWN”?
Throw another name into the hat, kids! The LA Times is reporting that Stephen Daldry is now among the candidates to man the helm of “Breaking Dawn”. Daldry, who directed “The Reader”, “The Hours”, and “Billy Elliot”, been nominated for an Best Directing Oscar for every film that he’s directed.
Daldry joins a list that includes Sofia Coppola, Bill Condon and Gus Van Sant, all of whom have been approached about taking on the fourth film in the “Twilight” franchise. Like those three, there are not yet indications Daldry would actually take the gig, but the fact that Summit Entertainment, the studio behind the films, has reached out to him suggests where its intentions lie for the fourth film.
Having already gone indie with Catherine Hardwicke, polished/commercial with Chris Weitz and genre auteur with David Slade for the franchise’s first three movies, Summit clearly wants a high-end prestige filmmaker to handle the fourth picture.
“TWILIGHT” GRAPHIC NOVEL SELLING WELL
Seeing how rabid TwiHards are for anything and everything “Twilight” combined with the fact that the “New Moon” DVD sold over four million units last weekend, it comes as no big surprise that the “Twilight” graphic novel is doing well.
The graphic novel adaption of Stephenie Meyer’s Twilight sold over 66,000 copies in its first week, the largest debut for a graphic novel in the US, according to publisher Yen Press. Twilight: The Graphic Novel, Volume 1, illustrated by Korean artist Young Kim, already broke the record for largest first printing for a graphic novel with 350,000 copies.
INTERVIEW WITH THE HUMANS: JUSTIN CHON AND MIKE WELCH
Team Human members Justin Chon, Mike Welch, and Christian Serratos were on hand in Salt Lake City on Friday night to promote the release of the “New Moon” DVD and InThisWeek.com was able to get an interview with a couple of Forks’ famous humans.
Mike Welch:
“I certainly didn’t expect this. I think we all knew that it had the potential to be a successful franchise. But no, I’ve never been apart of anything like this,” he says.
“The priority for me was to first and foremost please the fanbase. How do you do that? You capture what Stephenie created to the best of your ability. So having Stephenie on set was an enormous help. Her approval meant more to me than anything. If she likes what you are doing with the character she created, you are on the right track. I respect film critics in what they do, but with what that said, and particularly in this case, I think that this franchise is accomplishing what it set out to do, which is to please the fans, ” Welch says.
Justin Chon:
“When we were shooting ‘New Moon’ they had these black tarps that covered the sets so you couldn’t see in, and one day there was a helicopter flying above the set. Was this really happening? Did someone really rent a helicopter so they could get a shot of someone picking their nose? It’s absolutely wild to be a part of this.”
JACKSON RATHBONE COMPARES “TWILIGHT” TO “DREAD”
from mtv.com:
Jackson Rathbone has now starred in three vampire movies (you may have heard of them, “Twilight” something or other), but the 25-year-old actor’s first foray into horror is “Dread,” newly released on DVD, about a college student who makes a documentary about what people dread most in life.
The film, based on a short story by horror king Clive Barker, isn’t necessarily typical of the genre, Rathbone said in an interview yesterday. “I hate to call it a horror film because it’s really more of a psychological thriller,” he said. “Clive Barker’s known for those horroristic elements, and it was more of a humanistic story.”
“One of the things I like is when different worlds collide. With the ‘Twilight’ films, you have the horror element of the vampire, but it becomes more of a romantic action film with the vampire falling in love with the girl. With ‘Dread’ it’s kind of the same thing. Clive Barker’s world is usually more of a mythical gothic world, but ‘Dread’ is more of a personalized psychological thriller instead of a horror. It has the horror elements, but it’s much more of a person-to-person drama.”
I am so freakin’ ready for Summit to get the show on the road with “Breaking Dawn”! All of the speculation of one movie vs. two movies and who will direct is really getting old. I’m ready for some contracts to be signed and for that ball to be in motion. I do find the LA Times’ assessment of the varied directorial styles to be very interesting. Now that Summit has had a taste of winning an Oscar, they seem to want some more of it. Sadly, I doubt that the Academy will ever give any consideration to a Twilight Saga film just because of their tendency toward haughtiness. Given the way that feminist groups have railed against the books, I can’t imagine them being open-minded enough to give it a fair shake.
Justin Chon’s comment about the black helicopter flying over the “New Moon” set was pretty funny and I love how he reminisced on life before “Twilight” – they were all “little actors trying to get roles in a indie film.”
Reading all the way through MTV’s article on Jackson Rathbone just broke my heart. It’s obvious that he took that loss really hard and it’s amazing to see him turning that grief into something positive with the fundraising gigs that he plays with his band.
What do you think of today’s Twilight Saga news? Join us in the forum and share your thoughts!
