It's been just three short years since Stephanie Meyer's young adult novel 'Twilight' created a feeding frenzy among vampire and romance-loving readers. Now, with four novels in the series, we're just over a week away from the movie adaptation of the original.
Mania sat down with Melissa Rosenberg, writer of the screenplay 'Twilight' for an exclusive interview. In part one of our two part chat we talked about what it was like to work on one of the most highly anticipated movies of the fall.
Melissa Rosenberg is calm and well put together when I sit down to interview her, and she has good reason to be. As the writer of the film Twilight, adapted from the best selling book by Stephanie Meyer, Rosenberg’s job ended before filming of the movie began. Not to mention she has not felt the brunt of the media frenzy and pandemonium that currently surrounds the young stars of the film, at least not yet. “It’s been crazy for everyone else,” says Rosenberg.
Having written hundreds of hours of television including writing on such television series as Party of Five, The OC, and now Dexter, as well as the feature film Step Up, Melissa Rosenberg had never heard of the book Twilight when she was asked to write the adaptation. “I had gotten a call from Erik Feig at Summit, the studio, and he asked, ‘how do you feel about teens and vampires?’ and I said, ‘I LOVE teens and vampires.’ He said, ‘well we have this book that’s quite popular.’ When I got off the phone I was at a friend’s house and I asked if he had heard of this book called Twilight and he actually had it on his book- shelf. A number of screenwriters I knew were aware of it and seeking out the rights for it. It was hot property that I became aware of.”
Rosenberg didn’t work that closely with Stephanie Meyer who wrote the book so she could approach the screenplay from a completely fresh perspective. “I wanted to keep outside influences away as much as possible so I had a pure relationship with the book. I think there is another element before I met Stephanie that here was this huge celebrity and I think intimidated and worried that I might get pushed one way or another. Come to find out that when I did meet her and she is so down to earth and very real. She was very collaborative so that fear was unfounded. I started off being a bit protective and also protective of the creative process, of my creative process. I wanted to make sure it was going to be my interpretation of the book and was able to relax. Catherine (Hardwicke), the director, was actually an enormous influence on the screenplay.”
For Rosenberg dealing with a book adaptation was actually an easier process than having to write something from scratch. “Being handed a book with such strong storytelling in it was quite a gift. The challenge then becomes how do distill, how do you condense? How do you keep the soul of the book alive? You can’t just translate the words from the page onto a screenplay as much as I think the fans would like that. It’s about keeping the soul and the spirit and the voice of the book alive in the screenplay. That becomes a challenge and to honor the book. It’s not just about adapting a book, it’s about adapting this book and you want to stay really true to it so it’s a different set of challenges. I felt quite lucky to be dealing with them.”
Check back tomorrow for part two of our interview with Melissa Rosenberg, where we'll talk buzz, fans and 'Dexter'! And keep checking Mania for more exclusive 'Twilight' coverage!
'Twilight' opens in theaters on November 21st.