Pretty But Dumb: Robert Pattinson Aims High for 'Breaking Dawn' Director...Too High

Well, at least he’s cute, if you’re into the whole unwashed thing. In an interview with MTV News, “Twilight” star Robert Pattinson suggests a new director for “Breaking Dawn”: Gus Van Sant.

We will admit that Pattinson’s, umm, logic isn’t entirely faulty. The fourth film in the “Twilight” series is rumored to shoot in Portland, the director’s locale of choice. Plus, Van Sant has done adolescent films (“Elephant” and “Paranoid Park”) and coming-of-age dramas (“Finding Forrester” and “Good Will Hunting”). However, this seems like an unnecessary stretch for the director, even as he works outside his comfort zone with the upcoming film “Restless.” We even called that film superficially and slightly “Twilight’-ish” in our post about the next movie on his slate, but actually directing the fourth film in the series would be a big step down from his Oscar nomination for “Milk” and a career of serious filmmaking.

“Breaking Dawn” is the most adult book of the series, even featuring (gasp!) sex and violence. In the novel, all the dirty stuff happens off the page, but (spoiler–and vomit–alert) author Stephenie Meyer does go into graphic detail in a birthing scene that involves a clawing fetus and womb-piercing vampire teeth. We can’t imagine Van Sant would be amenable to the book’s poorly drawn characters, silly plots, and groan-inducing dialogue, but it seems even less likely that he would devote himself to a project that couldn’t be less progressive in its ideas. It’s anti-feminist, anti-choice, and anti-sex, not to mention anti-brain.

If Van Sant takes Pattinson’s oh-so-sage advice in the video below, he would be following in the footsteps of Catherine Hardwicke (“Twilight”), Chris Weitz (“New Moon”), and David Slade (“Eclipse”), but uhh, yeah. Not gonna happen.