8 Days (Singapore) Magazine Scans
Straight Out of the Box
Rob in Munich
New Moon Release Date-Bad news for Lautner?
from EW.com.
'Twilight' sequel: New details on 'New Moon'
Dec 10, 2008, 01:00 PM | by Nicole Sperling
Categories: Movie Biz
Summit Entertainment has tentatively slated Nov. 20, 2009, as the release date for New Moon, the Twilight sequel, which means any director who signs on to replace Twilight director Catherine Hardwicke has to be in Vancouver by Dec. 15 to begin 12 weeks of preproduction before a mid-March start date. Reports have speculated that Hardwicke was fired for being difficult on set, but sources close to her suggest Summit's aggressive production schedule turned her off. "She'd love to do the sequel if she could do it better than Twilight,” says one. “It became clear that Summit didn’t have those same priorities."
Indeed, at press time the second movie appeared to have little more than a rough first-draft working script. As Summit’s production president Erik Feig told EW during Twilight’s record-busting first weekend, “There is that first...script. All the finesse that turns a screenplay into a movie hasn’t happened yet.” Two weeks later, Summit is saying it’s happy with screenwriter Melissa Rosenberg’s progress.
Another of Hardwicke’s primary concerns was that hunky vampire Edward remains MIA throughout New Moon’s middle portion. In her own opening-weekend interview, she told EW, “You have to get the chemistry as strong between Jacob and Bella as it was between Bella and Edward. You also have to do something with that arc: She’s in love with somebody, he disappears, she falls in love with someone else, and the first guy comes back. Movies like Pearl Harbor have tried it. It absolutely didn’t work.”
With or without Hardwicke, Summit faces other snags. Two sources tell EW the studio doesn’t want to rehire baby-faced Taylor Lautner (pictured) as Jacob, though Lautner’s agent has apparently reached out to the imaging company behind The Curious Case of Benjamin Button in an attempt to demonstrate to Summit how a digitally bulked-up Lautner could work. (Summit says it won’t make a decision until a new filmmaker is on board.) There’s also the matter of finding a cast of Native American actors to play Jacob’s werewolf clan — a difficult challenge Hardwicke was also faced with before settling on Lautner, who isn’t completely Native American. And with a slightly increased budget of $50 million — much of which is assumed will go to leads asking for heftier paydays, location shoots in Italy, and ramped-up F/X — Summit will have to scrimp somewhere.
So what director would want to take on such a big headache? Well, at press time, an offer was out to Chris Weitz (The Golden Compass), who put Summit on the map years ago when its foreign sales operation made tons of cash off of his first film, American Pie. (One source says Weitz has already had conversations with below-the-line crew for New Moon.) “We are in a recession,” reminds one Hollywood insider. “It’s a hit franchise. Whoever steps into it is guaranteed a $100 million gross. Everyone wants this movie.” Adds an exec at another studio, “You’d have to have a very high standard for art, hate the movie business, and hate money to walk off this sequel.”
Gozde: This article is very scary! I hope they don't mess New Moon up :(
Kristen Stewart talks about Rob Part Deux
Kristen gave an interview to the Australian magazine AdelaideNow. You can read the whole thing HERE, the parts about Rob are below. Thanks to Jan for sending us the link.
Skipped first part....
The man of whom she is speaking is co-star Robert Pattinson, a Brit whose striking good looks and portrayal of undead heart-throb Edward Cullen have earned him the adulation, and hysteria, of teenage girls around the world.
The hysteria became frighteningly apparent to Stewart during promotional appearances ahead of the film's release, with thousands of teenage fans turning out to meet, well, mainly Pattinson.
"Some are rabid and just look at me with disdain," she says.
"I remember we did a signing at a bookstore and, after being there a couple of hours, we had to leave, but there was still this wall of people waiting to get Rob's autograph.
"I saw people looking at Rob and the prospect of not getting to meet him after waiting for so long, they just wanted to die. It was scary. I thought: 'If we leave, there is going to be a riot'."
Stewart first met Pattinson at director Catherine Hardwicke's Los Angeles home to see if they had on-screen chemistry and was immediately hooked on her leading man.
"He's a good actor and has a really insane work ethic. He is really sensitive. He's perfect. He's my perfect Edward."
Not surprisingly, reports hinted at an on-set romance between Pattinson, 22, and Stewart, then 17, during the shoot in the Oregon wilds. Their off-screen chemistry was enough to concern Hardwicke, who revealed she was worried the duo's obvious closeness would mean the end of Stewart's relationship with her boyfriend of five years, actor Mike Angarano.
Angarano is a close friend of Hardwicke's since she directed him in 2005's Lords of Dogtown.
Stewart takes a breath and looks at the floor when told of Hardwicke's comment.
"We were fine. I have not left my boyfriend for Robert Pattinson," she says quietly.
"But we went through a lot together. It is crazy to go through something that heavy in real life. At the end of it you are inevitably going to have something.
"I know a version of him better than anybody else in the world because I did this movie with him."
And they will do more. Both have signed contracts to appear in at least two Twilight sequels.
While stardom does not excite Stewart, the idea of being in a film franchise does.
"I would love to follow the character for that long. It would be an experience that I've never had before. I'm low-profile and I know everybody's like 'well, wait until the movie comes out', but it (fame) still doesn't really matter.
"You pull that to you. If you want that, you will get it. But if you don't want it, you will repel it at least a little bit.
"Sure, Twilight is really huge right now and everybody's freaking out over it, but it will go away soon and I will be back to doing what I'm used to doing - which is weird little movies that nobody sees."
For now, Stewart is looking forward to working unhindered by child actor laws, which limited the amount of time she was on set, meaning her co-stars on Twilight often had to do their scenes without her there.
"I will do better work now because of it," she says. "They're doing it to protect you, but you feel as if you are being deprived of something. I was 17 and I hated it."