Catherine Hardwicke: 'Twilight' Scripts Initially 'Sucked'

Grab your pitchforks, Twi-hards! In a recent interview with Vulture, 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 seated next to the heads of Summit Entertainment, who handed her five scripts and asked her 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 it captured that feeling of being madly in love. And I thought, That's kind of a good challenge, to see if, as a filmmaker, I could make you feel that giddy, crazy."

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. "Catherine Hardwicke has a genius for getting inside the brain and is so in touch with what it's like to be a teenage girl," Bill Condon, who directed "Breaking Dawn," told Moviefone last fall. "I couldn't imagine doing that first 'Twilight.'"

Despite the "horrible" initial script, the first "Twilight" went on to gross $392 million worldwide.

You can read the entire interview with Hardwicke over on Vulture.

[via Vulture]

Comments

[orthobobsuruncle]

11:55 AM on 02/13/2012

Initially?

[XV8 Crisis Suit]

10:49 AM on 02/12/2012

That's not the only thing about it that sucked...

[Reyeshawk13]

01:37 PM on 02/09/2012

My daughter, who has seen the movies while I haven't, would argue that it's Hardwicke's direction and script which "sucked." She really disliked all of them, especially the dialogue. Her comment was that, in the first one, it was like she turned the cameras on and then said, "Okay, do whatever you feel like doing."

[Blind WatchMan]

01:10 PM on 02/09/2012

HAHA

[tanya11111]

01:01 PM on 02/09/2012

sucked? no, that implies it USED to....

[Angus12]

12:30 PM on 02/09/2012

After all the rewrites and hard work it still sucks.

[SingularityPoint]

12:02 PM on 02/09/2012

Anyone over the age of 17 who watched these movies and then actually felt compelled to critique the movie, are losers. You were never the intended demographic.

[eric14]

06:03 AM on 02/10/2012

Does that work the other way round? Are under-17's losers when they critique a book for adults in school? Are all under 17's losers?

[Craig 212]

11:51 AM on 02/09/2012

How much worse could it get...?

[xansam]

11:31 AM on 02/09/2012

Ummm, they still suck. And I wouldn't call what they "actors" do acting….

[eric14]

06:03 AM on 02/10/2012

Posturing posers prissily posing.

[american-dolt]

11:25 AM on 02/09/2012

Correction, it all sucks.

[AnaM]

09:10 AM on 02/09/2012

Haven't read the novels. Not interested in reading them - especially after seeing the film trailers.
I mean, come on - sparkling vampires. Seriously?

[RobertFromMN]

06:41 AM on 02/09/2012

The scripts "initially sucked"? Could they possibly have been worse than the final product?

[Charles Carmichael]

02:35 AM on 02/09/2012

If the script was worse before, I can't even imagine.
Love Vampires when the are done well but these movies were hilariously bad.

[TheBestPatriot]

11:12 PM on 02/08/2012

Those initial scripts must have been terrible because the final product wasn't very good.

I am a fan of the Twilight films, but I don't feel good about admitting that. It's a guilty pleasure for me.

[Boakyewaa Glover]

11:00 PM on 02/08/2012

Catherine dear, I am sorry, but you didn't do any better with the re-writes! Twilight sucks, any fan who denies it is just being defensive. It is not great storytelling. The dialogue is just terrible and unreal, and immature. Twilight has become a phenomenon, yes, but the craziness surrounding it has very little to do with the quality of the scripts, or movie or your direction. Sometimes people obsess over things that just don't make sense. Case in point, Kim Kardashian. She's incredibly popular, makes a ton of money, but has no real talent and it is hard to understand why she remains a celebrity. Same for Twilight - incredibly popular, but truly terrible movies, truly.