Summary:
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Director Catherine Hardwicke crashed Robert Pattinson’s birthday party with Kristen Stewart and Toni Collette. They hugged and reminisced.
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The trio faced an unexpected large crowd at a Rome event, realizing the film’s immense impact. Twilight’s success surpassed expectations.
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Hardwicke made major script changes, rejecting the original draft’s drastic deviations. Summit Entertainment acquired the rights, staying true to Meyer’s vision.
Director of ‘Twilight‘ Catherine Hardwicke revealed that she and Kristen Stewart crashed Robert Pattinson’s 37th birthday party.
“Strangely enough I went to Rob’s birthday party recently,” Catherine told Josh Horowitz during a special Nov. 20 episode of his Happy, Sad, Confused podcast. “I kind of crashed with my friend Toni Collette. And then Kristen crashed it too!
She added, “So that was just a few months ago, it was just like, ‘Oh my god.’ We all hugged each other, like, ‘This is so crazy and cool.’ I see them both at parties, events and everything, they’re both lovely.”
Catherine also reminisced on the massive opening from the 2008 film and how Robert and Kristen’s lives, much like the characters in the film, were changed.
The director also recalled an event they went to for the Rome Film Festival, where there was suppose to be a small signing at a bookstore which turned into an event where many fans lined up for blocks. Since the group showed up without security expecting it to be a small event, the trio had to push through a large crowd in order to get their car at the end.
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“We finally get into the van,” Catherine told Josh, “pull each other in, and we try to drive, we couldn’t even drive and suddenly went, ‘Okay this is not just a little movie. These people are going nuts.’ After that we had to have security, everything. That’s when we knew, ‘Okay, this is big.'”
Stephanie Meyer’s adaptation of the book would go on to become such a big success that it earned over $3 billion at the box office.
In regards to the story on how it should have gone, there were plenty of changes leading up to the release.
Director Catherine Hardwicke quickly made the writers pivot after throwing the first draft into the trash. “The original script literally had Bella on jet skis being chased by the FBI,” she recalled. “She was a star athlete. Nothing to do with the book.”
In addition, Paramount and MTV initially had acquired the film rights to Twilight, with the original script making significant changes to the book. “It had veered very far from the book, and so I did not like it at all,” director Catherine Hardwicke revealed to CinemaBlend. After three years, Paramount released the rights and then-independent film studio Summit Entertainment, immediately picked them up.
Book author Stephenie Meyer also had some strict guidelines when it came to the adaptation of her source material. She didn’t want any stereotypical vampire elements added in and demanded that Edward’s “so the lion fell in love with the lamb” line make it into the final version.
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