Director Catherine Hardwicke making plans for "New Moon" - if she gets the job
Catherine Hardwicke (Associated Press photo)
“Twilight” director Catherine Hardwicke is planning to get the film version of “New Moon,” the second of Stephenie Meyer’s four-book vampire romance saga, finished by the end of 2009 – if she gets the job of helming the sequel.
“Well, right now we’re trying to figure out if the studio people, and me, and everyone’s on the same page,” Hardwicke told MTV News in a story posted today. “I want to do (‘New Moon’) better than we did ‘Twilight,’ and do it really cool. I definitely don’t want to do it as something just tossed off, like a ‘Saw II’ or something like that. We want to be sure that it’s really going to be great and that everyone’s on the same page.”
Hardwicke said she has a March/April timetable to start filming, again if she gets the job.
“I would say that the film could be finished by the end of 2009, if not the beginning of 2010; cameras could be rolling in about five months,” Hardwicke said. “We spent about a year and three months getting (‘Twilight’) ready, between writing the script and casting. We could probably do things a little bit faster this time, but who knows? It depends. And sometimes you can do things really fast. You can get two editors on, and you can just zip through.”
Hardwicke said that she already has read the first version of the “New Moon” script penned by “Twilight” screenwriter Melissa Rosenberg.
The director told MTV News that she already has come up with some “cool ideas” for the sequel, especially surrounding the transformation of Bella Swan’s (Kristen Stewart) BFF Jacob Black (Taylor Lautner) from an easygoing teenager to a massive werewolf.
She said in roundtable interviews at the “Twilight” junket last month in Beverly Hills, Calif., that “New Moon” will be much more complicated to make than “Twilight.”
“‘New Moon’ is much more expensive than the first book because there’s werewolf transformations, CGI, there’s stunts-jumping off cliffs, motorcycle rides. They go to Italy. So we have to make quite a lot of money on this one (“Twilight”) to be able,” she said.
“Twilight” made nearly $70 million its opening weekend – setting a record as the top debut for a film director. Though its take dropped sharply in its second weekend, it’s still closing in on the $120 million mark – not bad for a movie made for only $37 million.
All this makes me wonder why Hardwicke isn’t already signed on to direct “New Moon.”
Though Hardwicke told MTV News that she is hoping Lautner, 16, grows a bit more to portray the towering Jacob Black, it’s clear that time is somewhat limited to get the saga adapted.
The four books are set in a relatively narrow timeframe and the vampire hero, Edward Cullen (played by newly minted heartthrob Robert Pattinson), and his coven are supposed to be ageless. Summit can’t sit around dithering while Stewart, Pattinson and the rest of the cast ages.
-BAM
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