Speaking at Sundance recently, Twilight director Catherine Hardwicke said that the original script for the film (prior to her rewrite) was ‘horrible,’ and she had told Summit she’d only take on the film if she could rewrite it herself.
“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 … ” She went to Summit with images of how she thought the movie should look and said she’d only sign on if she could do a complete rewrite. They agreed.
We’re glad Hardwicke took matters in to her own hands. Ultimately, her version of Twilight was loyal to the book and kick off a huge worldwide franchise.