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The director may have changed, but the success of the Twilight Saga continues unabated as FOCUS discovers.
The last experience American director Chris Weitz had of a big budget screen franchise was taking the helm of The Golden Compass. So he would be well used to dealing with huge audience expectation, and indeed the responsibilities that go with bringing a well loved book to the screen.
Yet it must have been with a mild sense of trepidation that he signed on to direct The Twilight Saga: New Moon, which has a tone and audience quite different from his breakthrough movie, American Pie.
But the affable Weitz took it in his stride, despite admitting ruefully that he was a little vague on the Twilight phenomenon in those early days.
“When I was offered the chance to direct this I'd never read any of the books and I hadn't seen the first movie, like many people with a ‘y' chromosome,” he quips.
“I thought I'd better do some catching up, so I went to see Twilight and I thought Taylor and Rob and Kristen were great. That was the first inducement, a young cast that I thought I could work with and be interested in working with.
“Then I read the book and there were these wonderful dark tones to what could be explored on film, as well as some technical challenges that I felt I could handle. Like the CGI aspects of it and being on location in Italy, which I knew was going to be fun but very challenging.”
This latest instalment, as avid fans will already know, sees a further wrinkle in the relationship between Bella Swan (Kristen Stewart) and vampire Edward Cullen (Robert Pattinson), who decides to leave Bella in order to save her from his own undead fate.
Step forward old friend Jacob Black (Taylor Lautner) who has evidently been working out, and starts to fill the Edward shaped hole in Bella's life.
But he has a dark secret of his own that makes things tricky for the conflicted heroine of Stephenie Meyer's bestselling story, which builds to a rousing and colourful climax that sets things up nicely for the next instalment.
The constituency to which this film is aimed have responded with rapturous acclaim and enormous box office receipts, and the buzz has already begun about the third film in the series which is scheduled for release in the UK next July.
But if he was ignorant of their power before this film Chris Weitz has certainly been made aware of the ‘Twi-Hard' Twilight fans out there.
“Apparently I should have been scared of the Twi-Hards the whole time,” he smiles. “The main question I've been asked is how much pressure I got from the fan base, but actually I've found that they've been extraordinarily supportive of me.
“I put myself on complete media blackout while making the film, because otherwise I'm the kind of person who would be up at three in the morning having a heated discussion about the film with a 14 year old girl in Norway.
“But since the movie wrapped, I've become a horrible Twitter addict and the reaction to the footage has been extraordinarily encouraging. So actually it was a source of inspiration during the post production period which was difficult and challenging.”
With The Twilight Saga: Eclipse now in post production, and a new director – David Slade – at the helm, the franchise rolls on with increased momentum and growing confidence. And audiences cannot seem to get enough.
ANWAR BRETT
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