Exclusive First Look: ‘Twilight”s Renesmee Was Almost the Creepiest. Doll. Ever.
You remember Renesmee, right? The adorable half-vampire, half-human daughter of Bella and Edward in "Twilight?" Well, she was almost a doll. A really, really creepy one.
Back when the Twi-gang was promoting "Breaking Dawn Part 2," the creation was referenced a few times in interviews and dubbed "Chuckesmee" by the cast and crew for its freakish physical similarities to horror movie mainstay Chucky. But Chuckesmee was never seen ... until now, that is.
See for yourself in our exclusive clip from the new "Twilight Forever: The Complete Saga" Blu-ray and DVD sets.
"Chuckesmee is one of the most grotesque animatronic babies ever to not be seen on film," producer Wyck Godfrey says. He's not kidding. In fact, director Bill Condon said pretty much the same thing in an interview with Entertainment Weekly back in August 2012.
"Chuckesmee was a giant misfire on all fronts,” he told the mag. "Truly, it was one of the most grotesque things I've ever seen. It was a horror show! There was one shot where I call, ‘Cut!’ and suddenly she turns her head and mechanically stares right into the camera. It was incredibly disturbing."
"I understand the theory behind it, you know, to have this little creature that does all the hand movements and stuff," Nikki Reed recalls. "I want the whole world to forgive me now before this movie comes out, because I'm holding like a 60-pound mechanical doll … It's really difficult for me."
Luckily, we didn't have to see that. Instead, we got a digital F/X baby that grew up (at an alarming rate, as we're sure you recall) to be the adorable Mackenzie Foy.
"You're trying to create something that's otherworldly with Renesmee in the movie that has to be preternaturally intelligent yet still look like a baby but actually look a little bit more mature than one would be at one-day-old," Wyck explains. "So we ended up pulling the thing out on the day and shooting it. The second you're holding it up you realize this is never going to work. No fake thing is ever going to do the trick.
"If you're Bella, you're looking at it going, 'I don't want that thing. Put it back!'"
And, thankfully, they did.
"Twilight Forever: The Complete Saga" Blu-ray and DVD sets arrive in stores on Tuesday.