EXCLUSIVE! Thank Goodness THIS Didn’t Happen: ‘The Twilight Saga’ Was Almost Made Into An Action Series!
Twilight producer Mark Morgan reveals that a different studio nearly bought the rights to Stephenie Meyers’ books — and turned Edward and Bella’s love story into a vampire action flick!
We all agree that the best part of the Twilight Saga is the love story between Edward Cullen and Bella Swan, right? Have we got news for YOU, Twi-hards! Had another studio gotten their hands on Stephenie Meyer’s fabulous collection of teen vampire novels, you would have been seeing way less of your favorite characters, far MORE action…and Bella’s dad, Charlie Swan, would have died!
Twilight producer Mark Morgan gave HollywoodLife.com the exclusive scoop at the LA premiere of Nikki Reed‘s new film, Last Day of Summer, Sept. 22. “I actually found the material originally and then [sold it to MTV] and then sold it to Paramount,” he confided. “Lo and behold, six months later, after we chose a writer [Melissa Rosenberg], we did a draft and [Paramount] put the project in turnaround.”
Mark noted that it was hard finding a buyer for the script — believe it or not, nobody wanted it! “We went shopping to every studio around, but everyone passed,” he told us. “Every studio passed! Finally [Summit] said ‘let’s do it.’ It was a total blessing that Summit [chose to do the movie], because frankly, Paramount would have chosen a different director [over Catherine Hardwicke]. Their rewrite wasn’t exactly like the book.”
So what WOULD you have seen in this parallel Twilight universe? “They wanted to go more with an action movie,” Mark explained. “They had Bella [Kristen Stewart] fighting back. They had her father dying in one of the scripts, actually, and her becoming a vampire in the first movie. There were a lot of weird things that I don’t think they understood at the time, because the books were just becoming popular. By the time [the script] got to Summit, they were smart enough to say ‘You know what? Let’s throw out all the old scripts and let’s start from scratch.”
EXCLUSIVE: RPatz and KStew Are Going to Lose Their Virginities in South America!
We’re not talking little tweaks here and there either, BFFs — Mark says Paramount wanted to change EVERYTHING about the movie you love so much! “[They wanted to change] everything,” he confirmed. “Ironically, I love Paramount, but I do not think they would have hired Catherine, our first director. They would have gone for someone bigger. Boys. More action. I mean, one of their drafts literally had a Korean FBI agent who was hunting and tracking vampires across the coast. There was SWAT in the trees and literally it was like, ‘Red leader, read leader 1′ and the vampires were picking them out of the woods. It would have been a different movie.”
Mark is well aware of what could have happened to Bella, Edward and the Cullen clan — and he’s only too happy that things worked out the way they should have! “[The fans] would have killed us,” he acknowledged.”They would have stoned us.”
Plus, R-Patz and K-Stew may never have fallen in love! Now THAT would have been a tragedy!
Laura Schreffler & Sarah Rose Attman
Also, be sure to check out our vampire face-offs:
- Kristen Stewart vs. Nina Dobrev, Anna Paquin & more — who’s the hottest vampire lover?
- Robert Pattinson vs. Ian Somerhalder & more — which vampire has the sexier style?
- Ian Somerhalder & Nina Dobrev vs. R-Patz & K-Stew — which vampire hook-up is hotter?
- Edward & Bella vs. Damon & Katherine and MORE — what’s the hottest vampire hook-up ever?
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dave
Posted at 12:37 PM on February 21, 2012
Instead we got a werewolf falling in love with a baby.
Much better.
Erin
Posted at 10:30 PM on September 24, 2011
I don’t understand why they didn’t just take this plot and make an original vampire movie! It’s not like anyone could complain of it being a ripoff since it’s so different from Twilight.
Eliza
Posted at 11:40 PM on March 11, 2011
“We all agree that the best part of the Twilight Saga is the love story between Edward Cullen and Bella Swan, right?”
-No. We don’t. The best (and possibly only good) part of Twilight was Victoria’s hair. And even that’s stretching it.
“It was a total blessing that Summit [chose to do the movie], because frankly, Paramount would have chosen a different director [over Catherine Hardwicke]. Their rewrite wasn’t exactly like the book.”
-A blessing? How about a curse? Catherine Hardwicke is the only person I’ve ever heard who makes me want to violently stab something with a fork. Also, the less the movie is like the book, the better! No offense to Ms. Meyer, but Twilight wasn’t exactly quality reading in the first place.
“So what WOULD you have seen in this parallel Twilight universe?… ‘“They had Bella… fighting back.”‘
-So, they had a strong, capable female role model, instead of a useless flake who bites her lip and obsesses over sparkly zombies.
“Mark says Paramount wanted to change EVERYTHING about the movie you love so much! ‘[They wanted to change] everything,’ he confirmed.”
-…And that’s just bad writing.
-Bottom line? Catherine Hardwicke and the Summit douchebags took what would’ve been an incredible, awesome movie and turned it into the cinematic experience of drinking warm water. They refused girls the positive example they deserve. They had the opportunity to make a blockbuster that would appeal to everyone, not just a crowd of screaming preteens in justin Bieber T-shirts. And they threw it away.
“Mark is well aware of what could have happened to Bella, Edward and the Cullen clan — and he’s only too happy that things worked out the way they should have!”
-The way they should have? Try the way nothing should ever have to be.
Rob
Posted at 5:03 PM on April 6, 2011
“The cinematic experience of drinking warm water” whoever you are, you are now my rhetorical hero.
Vel
Posted at 2:10 AM on February 2, 2012
Best reply on this entire freaking site.
I gagged at this article at a very early line: “Stephenie Meyer’s fabulous collection of teen vampire novels…” Fabulous?! Edwards is a sleazy abusive manipulative stalker, Jacob turned into an abusive rape-kisser and later pedophile, and Bella was a whiny useless emo throughout. The writing and grammar was terrible, and the whole series was so sexist that I had to set a copy of Breaking Dawn on fire when it talked about how Leah is so wrong for being the only one in history to join the werewolf boys-only club and even said she was less than a woman because she couldn’t have kids. Meanwhile, fans say they wanted to be stalked by Edwards and don’t have a problem with “love bruises”! If you don’t get how WRONG and DANGEROUS this series then I truly feel sorry for you.
Nick
Posted at 8:56 PM on March 1, 2011
YOure all retards. It wouldve been AWESOME.
suidery
Posted at 12:47 PM on February 2, 2011
This article was written by somebody with no understanding of “quality storytelling.”
Blade
Posted at 12:36 PM on February 2, 2011
It warms my heart to know that paramount at least tried to save us from the horror.
Psynyde
Posted at 11:00 PM on February 1, 2011
That would have been a way better movie… and it would have cut down on a lot of squealing tweens…
CrackedFan
Posted at 8:43 PM on February 1, 2011
“To summarize, Edward Cullen could have been a genuinely threatening vampire murdering swarms of human commandos and getting into martial arts fights. Instead, the only thing he ended up killing was the dignity of vampires everywhere.” -Cracked.com-
VitaminT
Posted at 4:27 PM on February 1, 2011
“We all agree that the best part of the Twilight Saga is the love story between Edward Cullen and Bella Swan, right?”
The writer of this article needs to be removed from the gene pool.
fatcat
Posted at 9:52 AM on February 1, 2011
NOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOO!!!!!!!!!!
That would have been an awesome script, and they threw that away for the original plot! It would have been so cool for it to have been an action movie, but all we get now are just sparkling vampires and shallow emo women!!!
They could’ve even had a nemesis?!?!?! Why did they have to appease the fans so much?!?!!
jen
Posted at 11:15 AM on September 26, 2010
I think this was published before. It was Time’s interview with Catherine Hardwicke. Paramount did a totally different script. Fortunately, CH threw it away and rewrite the whole thing with her friend MR, went to adventureland to find Bella and brought in Cedric for Edward’s character and the rest is screaming history for this phenomenon. Paramount’s lost, Summit’s gain.
Celina
Posted at 8:35 PM on September 24, 2010
U deuche bags should NEV’A DO THAT EVA!!!!
