'Twilight' director Catherine Hardwicke wished sequels were directed by women — but here's why 'Wonder Woman' gives her hope
Catherine Hardwicke and Twilight were the perfect match. The filmmaker’s indie darling Thirteen, about two rebellious girls coming of age in Los Angeles, put her on the map in 2003 and ultimately served as a calling card for her to land the screen adaptation of the hot YA property — about another teenage girl coming of age, albeit with a supernatural twist — five years later.
While critics never confused The Twilight Saga with Citizen Kane, a decade later the first film is still generally considered the best in the five-movie series. And for some fans, part of that dip had to do with the loss of Hardwicke’s female gaze after the original. The four sequels were all directed by men (2009’s New Moon by Chris Weitz, 2010’s Eclipse by David Slade, and 2011’s Breaking Dawn — Part 1 and 2012’s Breaking Dawn — Part 2 both by Bill Condon).
Hardwicke, who was offered the opportunity to direct New Moon but turned it down due to tight deadline and budget restraints, echoed that sentiment during a recent visit to Yahoo’s studios to celebrate Twilight‘s 10-year anniversary. And she pointed out that the Twilight franchise was not alone; several other YA adaptations that followed and tried to replicate the same formula also shied away from female filmmakers.
“That’s a little disappointing to me that they didn’t hire women to direct the other ones,” Hardwicke said. “And Divergent, and The Hunger Games, that all kind of spawned after that. All of them were directed by men.” The Hunger Games movies were directed by Gary Ross, while Divergent films were helmed by Neil Burger and Robert Schwentke. You could also add the Maze Runner series (Wes Ball) and The Mortal Instruments (Harald Zwart) to the list.
Hardwicke also credits Twilight‘s success to the low-fi sensibility she brought to the $37 million project: “Of course I had that female gaze and was trying to feel what Bella felt every minute of that movie. But also it was more indie. We did not know that we had this giant pressure. So we kind of got to make the movie like you make a personal film. And didn’t have 20 people standing over you saying, ‘Oh, it should be this, this, this.’ It was a lot more of an independent feeling.”
In the 15-plus years since Hardwicke (Lords of Dogtown, The Nativity Story, the upcoming Miss Bala) has been directing, she has seen much more attention focused on the underrepresentation of female directors in movies and television but very little change in the actual statistics. Only 4 percent of films in a recent 11-year stretch, for example, were directed by women.
On one hand, she’s disheartened by the still-steady flow of projects written by women with female leads then turned over to male directors, name-checking movies like The Girl on a Train and television shows like Sharp Objects and Big Little Lies.
But she’s also hopeful given the recent success of filmmakers like Patty Jenkins (“blowing the roof off with Wonder Woman“), Ava DuVernay (who pivoted from the awards contender Selma to the Disney blockbuster A Wrinkle in Time), and Kathryn Bigelow (who became the first woman to win the Best Director Oscar for The Hurt Locker).
“That gives every female filmmaker ammo. They can say Kathryn Bigelow did this, Ava did this, Twilight. And it [makes] it a little bit easier to get to make the next movie, or break down one more wall.”
Watch: Catherine Hardwicke reveals how Kristen Stewart found her perfect Edward Cullen during the Twilight auditions:
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