SCI FI Wire continues to post its exclusive interview with Catherine Hardwicke, the director of Twilight, in which she talks about potential sequels and some of the stunts and special effects in the adaptation of Stephenie Meyer's teen vampire romance novel. Twilight opens Nov. 21.
In a key scene, Edward climbs to the top of a tall tree with Bella on his back. Did you really shoot in tall trees?
Hardwicke: It's not CGI. Oh, yeah, they're really in the trees. The only CGI is that ... the stunt doubles were harnessed so that we had to paint out the wire. But it's not like we had a green screen and put the tree against the green screen. No, that's what makes it feel so scary, that it was the real thing.
In the close-ups, it's really stars Robert Pattinson, who plays Edward, and Kristen Stewart, who plays Bella?
Hardwicke: Oh, yeah, yeah, yeah. ... We are on the edge of a cliff on the Columbia River Gorge [in Oregon]. And then we're sort of on a flat spot, and we did take the top part of a tree and put it there for some of their shots. And then the stunt doubles has to do the real trees. ...
The first [stunt] guy free-climbed up the tree, and then he fastened [cables] to the top, and then he brought the stunt double, Helen, up after him. And then they fastened themselves to the tree. They're standing on the branch, and then the helicopter [with a camera] went around, and they almost got swept off the tree. I know, I was like, that was the scariest thing.
Talk about the climactic fight scene in the ballet studio.
Hardwick: That was intense. ... When you read the book, the fight scene, as soon as she gets bit and the venom goes through her veins, she doesn't see anything else that happens. Pretty much it's a blur, and then she wakes up in the hospital, and we know that Edward came and rescued her. ... I said, "I want to see it, man. And I want to see some action. I want to see what these guys did."
So you start thinking, like, "OK, what would they do? How would they try to kill each other?" They would not be punching, but they'd be ripping limbs apart. ... I had that idea ... that Edward would get into such a fury when he sees that [James, played by Cam Gigandet,] bites [Bella], his love, that he would just dive into the floor so hard that it, like, punches out the floor, you know? So then I was looking for a stunt coordinator that could get into it with me, and Andy Cheng, who's our wonderful [stunt coordinator]--and he worked for Jackie Chan for, like, 10 years--he was [Pattinson's] stunt double. Very cool. He goes, "I'll do this for you, Hong Kong style, Catherine." I'm like, "What does that mean?" And he says, "It means, even if it's no budget, I'm going to get you the shots and even more than you want." And he did it, man. I mean, that guy kicks ass. ...
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Director Catherine Hardwicke on the set of Twilight. (Deana Newcomb for Summit Entertainment)
Are you thinking about filming the second and third books, New Moon and Eclipse, down the road?
Hardwicke: Well, here's the challenge. Book two is literally about twice as expensive as this one, because they turn into werewolves, and they go to Italy, and they do all these stunts. So this one definitely looked like when you add it up, OK, how much does it take to market a movie? $35-40 million. Took almost $40 million to make it. That's $80 [million]. Then another $40 [million] to make the more expensive one, that'd be $120 [million]. So this thing has to make way more than that before somebody'll really be able to afford to make it. So we don't know if it's going to do that. That would be quite extraordinary to make that much money on such a low budget.
That's not out of the realm of possibility?
Hardwicke: You don't know. You don't know, though, because how much is everybody that's mad about it going to go see it the opening weekend, and then is that going to be 35 million people? ...
Thinking as a filmmaker, the sequel sounds like it would a different kind of movie. Twilight is very intimate.
Hardwicke: And then Edward is not in [a lot of New Moon]. Over half the movie, he's not even there.
And it becomes Bella and Jacob [played by Taylor Lautner].
Hardwicke: Yeah, and so you go into a different world. So it's definitely a different vibe, and the whole Native American story ... really dominates. So there would be all the CGI effects. It definitely changes tone. ...
From the first day I read the two books, I thought, ... I even had all the Jacob actors read scenes from the second book just to see like can they really handle [it], because it's a very small part here, but it gets much bigger in the next book.
-Patrick Lee, News Editor
Director Catherine Hardwicke (from left), star Kristen Stewart and author Stephenie Meyer on the set of Twilight. (Deana Newcomb for Summit Entertainment)
