In an audio interview with MTV, Ashley Greene, my official best thing about Twilight, briefly talked about the filming of Eclipse, the third film based on the novels by Stephenie Meyer, and the direction by David Slade.
I’ve always thought that the director choice was interesting, even beyond his publicly stated disinterest in the franchise, and it seems like he’s bringing some of the qualities that made the choice seem odd (but in some way good) in the first place. While obviously offering ‘darker’ doesn’t say much about anything, foreseeing a possible director/studio battle over tone/sensibility is interesting, and perhaps a positive. As I’ve said before, I think Slade has made two interesting (one of which – Hard Candy – was flat out good) films.
The other bit that’s been taken out and turned into headlines is “More Guy Friendly”. While I’m not sure how the demographic breaks down as it is, I think that such a change would be irrelevant even if true–and maybe even counter productive. One thing that something like Harry Potter (and no, I’m not a diehard fan at all) did so well was be something that was very universal from the very beginning. It’s not really male of female fantasy, it’s just fantasy. This of course isn’t at all a slight on Twilight–being (if that is the case) a product directed at women or girls certainly does not bring balance traditionally to a genre that is directed at males. For every Twilight there are 30 rpg-based novels with a female warrior running around in nothing but a bra and knee-highs, swinging a sword neither they (or anyone else) could possibly even lift (not that there’s anything wrong with that either). I will say that with the Potter films, they definitely did seem to grow up, and maybe Slade can bring that.
Still, I wonder if Slade will be able to pull off what horror fans will consider a good film regardless of one’s own perception of the franchise itself. My wonder, admittedly isn’t great enough for me find out first hand, but hell, if not, maybe we can get Greene in a film with aforementioned sword and bra. Now that’s guy friendly.
think that such a change would be irrelevant even if true–and maybe even counter productive.