Summit Entertainment might be planning to deliver “Twilight” franchise installments in rapid succession — so far films3 and 4, “New Moon,” and “Eclipse” are planned less than 9 months apart; the director for “Eclipse” is almost in place — but news of a fourth film, “Breaking Dawn,” might be overstated.
The Wrap reports that Summit is “deep” into planning the adaptation of the fourth Stephenie Meyer-penned book in the “Twilight” quadrilogy. They’re claiming “Breaking Dawn,” will start production in late spring 2010. The Wrap says that we could see “New Moon” (scheduled for this November), “Eclipse” (set for June 2010) and the fourth and final chapter all before 2010 is over (“Breaking Dawn” allegedly hoping to come out before 2010 is done). Again, it’s part of the shock and awe campaign and not losing an ounce of “Twilight” movie momentum.
It feels more than rushed, but that’s another story. However, EW talked to the “Breaking Dawn” screenwriter Melissa Rosenberg who is still working on “Eclipse” and says The Wrap report may be overstated. “The most I’ve heard from Summit is ‘re-read it and start thinking about it.’ “
Another source tells EW that they’re dubious of the report and that faithful Mormon Stephenie Meyer is having issues with her own material. “As far as I know, Stephenie was still having meetings asking, ‘Can we really make this into a movie?,’ ” as apparently ‘Dawn’ features “racy sex (gasp! no!) and explicit birth scenes [that] make it less pre-teen friendly,” (i.e. not PG-13 enough to pack in all the wet between the legs tweeners).
Summit for its part had no comment on both stories. Unless anything has changed behind the scenes that we don’t know about (which is entirely possible), still in the running for the “Eclipse” directorial gig is, Paul Weitz (“American Dreamz”) James Mangold (“3:10 To Yuma”) and Juan Antonio Bayona (“The Orphanage”) who was reported to have scored the gig at one time, but then, Summit proved that report false. All are still presumably in the running (Drew Barrymore recently revealed she’s no longer in discussions). “New Moon” is currently filming in Vancouver with Chris Weitz at the helm.