Twilight at 15
The teen classic is all grown up. A Rabbit’s Foot caught up with its director Catherine Hardwicke to discuss Twilight's legacy as well as her latest film, Mafia Mamma
Teenage angst had never been so alive as when Twilight was first released in 2008. Grossing more than ten times its budget, surprisingly to its distributors and financers, the film became an overnight sensation. Frenzies were generated at every event its leading stars Kristen Stewart or Robert Pattinson attended, whether it be film premieres or Comic-Con appearances and fans became equally fascinated with their relationship off-screen. Based on Stephenie Meyer’s international best-selling book series about teenage vampires in Forks, Washington, the franchise took over the mind, body and souls of young viewers all over the world.
Ahead of its 15th anniversary, A Rabbit’s Foot caught up with its director Catherine Hardwicke to discuss the film’s legacy and afterlives, as well as her latest feature, Mafia Mamma a feminist action thriller filmed in Rome.
You can read the full interview on our website
I kept asking while we were filming if could I have a little more money. To make this scene a little bigger? Could I have a little bit more money to make it snow? Because it says so in the book. They said no, no, no, we don’t think this movie is going to make much money. Maybe it’ll only make what Sisterhood of the Travelling Pants made, which was another popular book with young girls. They thought maybe we’ll only make like $29 million. But no. So people were shocked. I think that opening weekend in the US, we made $69 million, which is bigger than even a Bond film had made at the time. Everyone had their mind blown.
People really know the details and they go deep into it. They’ve seen it, you know, dozens of times, if not hundreds of times. But I think what was so fun for me is people working on TikToks, crazy things that people do like putting wigs on and doing the baseball scene, and ‘how long have I been 17 for’. People are still just kind of living it in a way which is really fun. Things like ‘spider monkey’ are now things that are just part of the culture. I loved The Rocky Horror Picture Show where people would go to the movies and dress up so I love that I’m part of a movie for which people do something similar.
Twilight was filmed around Portland, Oregon, and I have family there. I’ve been so many times, I love Oregon. So I was in the middle of the trees, taking a lot of photographs as the light came in. It just felt like a special world. So we wanted to make it feel like that uniqueness, like you’ve gone into this magical world. So of course we found the most beautiful forest and we put fog in there and then we would never film when the sun was out because then you would see like a bright head of sunlight. Of course, if the sun was out Edward was supposed to sparkle, so we really just kind of did it to create that magical world.
One of the reasons I made Twilight is to help people love the planet, and love trees and nature. It was my idea to have Bella be a vegetarian and we go to the greenhouse where you see the recycling compost. I was just kind of putting in messages about loving our planet. I’m just so happy that people are caring about the planet more, the new generations and more people are vegetarian or vegan. They love the idea of finding somebody that loves us unconditionally.
Read the full feature, and more stories like this, on our website.