It’s hard not to be jealous of Robert Pattinson these days. He’s the lead of Matt Reeves’ Bat-Verse, portraying a young Batman who’s coming into his own as a hero. While he waits to return as the Dark Knight, Pattinson has a few other major projects lined up, including Christopher Nolan’s The Odyssey. Rumors also claim that Denis Villeneuve has his eye on the actor for a villain role in the upcoming Dune: Part Three. If everything comes together, he will play Scytale, a Face Dancer, opposite Timothee Chalamet’s Paul Atreides. There was a time, though, when Pattinson wasn’t one of Hollywood’s first choices when a juicy part became available.
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Before the first Twilight movie was released and became a worldwide sensation, Pattinson was searching for another job like every other actor and landed a role in Remember Me, which recently found a new streaming home on Prime Video. Director Allen Coulter caught wind of him and brought him in for a script he was attached to that was part of the Black List. It was a drama about a young man named Tyler struggling to move on after losing his brother to suicide and becoming estranged from his father.
The marketing for Remember Me made it appear like a standard coming-of-age story, where Tyler would work through his problems and become a better person as he finds love. However, things took a turn at the end of Remember Me when Tyler visited the World Trade Center on September 11, 2001. The tragedy brings the people around Tyler closer together, but he doesn’t get to live to see it. The ending divided fans and critics alike and is still considered one of the strangest choices in movie history.
Well, anyone who didn’t get to experience Remember Me when it hit theaters in 2010 has another chance, as the movie is streaming on Prime Video. While the reviews for the film are far from positive, there’s a certain allure around the film that makes it worth checking out, especially because of how the people who made it stand up for it.
Remember Me‘s Cast and Crew Defended It From the Jump
Of course, after Remember Me came out, all anyone wanted to talk about was the twist ending. Some critics thought it was exploitative, and the people who saw it in theaters didn’t push back on that narrative. However, Coulter stood by his work, explaining in an interview with MTV News (via E! News) that they were trying to “humanize” the 9/11 tragedy.
“The fact is that, from the very beginning, this is a story about what we call ‘the bolt from the blue’ – the unexpected event that alters the trajectory of your life,” Coulter said. “We start with a very personal story, and as the story unfolds, that very notion is enlarged upon and goes from the personal to the universal. We felt we were trying to humanize that kind of event.”
Pattinson followed suit, explaining that the 9/11 attacks being part of the film’s story drew him to the project.
“When I first read the script, it seemed so much a part of it,” Pattinson explained. “As soon as I read it, I felt immediately connected to it. If it was edited down in any way, I don’t think it would be the same thing. I always feel there’s some kind of power to the script. I wanted to keep that in the movie.”
For better or worse, the twist stayed, and it likely made the movie more relevant than it would have been without it. It’s just hard to believe a streaming service would go out of its way to add Remember Me to its library if it didn’t have the controversy attached to it.
Have you seen Remember Me? Are you going to check it out now that it’s on Prime Video? Let us know in the comments below!
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