Grab your pitchforks, Twi-hards! In a recent interview, Catherine Hardwicke, the director of the first ‘Twilight’ movie, had some unkind words about the film’s initial script. At a Sundance dinner, Hardwicke had been handed five scripts and asked to read them. “Every one of those scripts sucked,” she says. “Oh, Lord, did they suck.” At the time, Hardwicke was best known for the critically acclaimed ‘Thirteen,’ which she wrote and directed. So, if she really thought the scripts for ‘Twilight’ were so horrible, why did Catherine eventually take the gig? Besides being allowed to do a complete rewrite, she was attracted to romance between Bella and Edward.
“I thought the script was horrible, but then I looked it up on the Internet and I thought, Okay, it’s based on a book and people tend to like it. There’s gotta be something there. So I read the book and I thought ‘That’s kind of a good challenge.” Although the rewrite Hardwicke asked for did little to sway the critical opinion of the film, it certainly helped the finished product in some eyes. Despite the “horrible” initial script, the first ‘Twilight’ went on to gross $392 million worldwide.
