Melissa Rosenberg on Twilight, New Moon and Eclipse

She holds one of the keys to the success of Twilight thus its no wonder that she has adapted the Twilight books into the movies for the third time already. But with New Moon hitting the theaters in a few weeks, is there more we can expect from the franchise? Jen Yamato talks to scriptwriter Melissa Rosenberg and ask her regarding adapting Twilight, her favorite scenes and many more. Here is an excerpt of her interview:

FEARnet: Summit seems to reward the Italian fans with juicy world-exclusive clips that the rest of us salivate over!

Melissa Rosenberg: They get a lot of clips – they saw a lot of the show! It was good; they were so receptive and wonderful.

Have you seen the final cut of New Moon yet?

I saw an early cut of it, yeah. Some of the special effects weren’t there, stuff like that. But I have to tell you, it’s funny because for writers, and for me – I often will dread a director’s cut. As a writer, you have already seen the movie in your head. And the movie in your head costs a gazillion dollars; you can’t actually make the movie in your head, but you’ve seen it. And so, a director’s cut is almost always a disappointment because it’s not what you’ve seen in your head. It can be a major adjustment, it’s not what’s in my head but this one’s different, but as good.

When I saw Chris’s cut, about ten minutes into the movie I started smiling. I thought to myself, I get to put my name on this. It was just so thrilling. It’s really good. I have to tell you, in all sincerity, it’s really good.

I saw you last on a set visit to New Moon’s Vancouver stages, and you had just arrived to watch the dailies. You seemed really pleased with what you were seeing from the Volturi scenes in particular.

Yes, and that was on a sound stage. The big screen version really lives up to it. It just looks lush and beautiful; it looks like a big movie. And the budget didn’t increase that significantly. Harry Potter budgets are what, $150-200 million? This is half of that, at least.

You’ve added a few scenes to New Moon that weren’t in the book, like the one where Jacob gives Bella a gift of a dream catcher. Can you tell us about that?

Actually, I got the idea from a writer friend of mine. I was searching around for that moment… You had to establish the relationship between Bella and Jacob; he can give her gifts and Edward can’t. The sort of easy friendship with the two of them, and yet also, show that Jacob actually has feelings for her. He sort of casually presents the dream catcher, but really he’s shopped around for it for quite a while. I wanted it to be something that was special to him and his culture, and it was so thematic to Bella; the movie is laden with her dreams. Her dream life is a very rich part of the film. So thematically, it really blended well. I thank my friend for coming up with that.

What’s one of your favorite new scenes or extended scenes that you’ve written into New Moon?

One of my favorites is actually the end, when they go to Volterra and confront a couple of Volturi. In the book, the conflict in that scene is verbal; there is an attack on Edward by Jane, and it works in the book, it’s beautiful in the book. It’s never acted out; it never explodes. For the movie, because it’s a visual medium, I felt like I wanted to externalize that conflict more, turn it into more of a battle. So it’s the same scenario, it’s just enacted and externalized. We get to see an actual fight.

To read more of her interview, click on the link above.

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