Twilight is about to celebrate its 10th anniversary, which means that the lunchbox and the Trapper Keeper you have with Edward and Bella's faces on it officially is a decade old. Catherine Hardwicke's massively successful adaptation of Stephenie Meyer's massively popular novel changed the industry in numerous ways. But when we asked Hardwicke what she'd change about Twilight, if she had the ability to make it today, she candidly told CinemaBlend:
I think one thing is, we would have probably had a little bit more money to do some of the fun CGI things that I wanted to do, because CGI costs have come down. We could have done a few more fun stunts and things, because I wanted to do quite a bit more at the baseball stadium. I want to do quite a bit more... I had a lot more storyboarded for the end, the finale sequence. So I think we would have been able to afford a lot of that now. Yeah, that would have been fun.
Naturally, any filmmaker revisiting a movie that they slaved over 10 years ago would LOVE to have even more money in their production budget, because there's no doubt that sacrifices have to be made on virtually every film set because things can't be afforded. And it's fun to hear Catherine Hardwicke single out specific scenes in 2008's Twilight that she wishes she could have improved with a few extra bucks.
One memorable scene is the baseball game staged in the middle of Twilight. It is... unexpected. Bella (Kristen Stewart) is getting used to the fact that the pale high schooler she's falling in love with is an undead vampire. And so is his entire, cooler-than-thou family. When Edward invites her to bond with the fam, she learns that vampires play baseball. In thunderstorms. It's really strange, in a cool and stylish way. Here, watch for yourself:
Given the fact that this is a 10-year-old clip, the effects actually age pretty well. But in watching how Catherine Hardwicke used slow motion to enhance the physical powers of the Cullen vampires, you can see how CGI improvements would have accentuated the positives in the Twilight baseball scene. It still would have been an unexpected addition to the love story. But it also would have looked better.
That being said, when looking back on the 10 years that have passed since Twilight, Catherine Hardwicke confessed that the one thing technology could never improve on was the chemistry of her leads. She tells CinemaBlend:
But for the actors, you know, it would be the same. I mean the core of this story -- technology hasn't changed how to get great chemistry between two actors. And I think those two, I would never imagine anybody else, like you say, in those two roles.
We spoke with Catherine Hardwicke earlier as she prepared to bring Twilight back to theaters for this anniversary screening. And she praised the casting of both Robert Pattinson and Kristen Stewart as her leads. While Twilight opened the door for teen lit at the multiplexes, it changed the career paths of basically everyone involved -- none more so that Pattinson and Stewart. They each have gone on to be involved with incredible films and exciting filmmakers. But now will ever be quite as huge as Twilight was.
Want to remind yourself just how big of an event the original movie was? You are in luck. Twilight will play in more than 450 movie theaters nationwide Sunday, October 21, and Tuesday, October 23, at 2 p.m. and 7 p.m. (local time). Tickets for the 10th-anniversary screenings can be purchased online at www.FathomEvents.com or at participating theater box offices. Really, it's worth it for the baseball scene, alone.
