Twilight Director Catherine Hardwicke Reveals Her Biggest Problem With the Sequels

Catherine Hardwicke kicked off the Twilight franchise by directing the first film back in 2008 and the film ended up being a massive box office success and spawning multiple sequels. Hardwicke ended up not directing any of the follow up films and now, the director is opening up about her biggest problem with those sequels: they weren’t directed by women. During a Q&A session at a 15th anniversary screening of Twilight attended by ComicBook.com, Hardwicke reveals that she loved making the first one and had the option to make the others, but while she chose not to, she had wanted those films to be directed by other women — and they weren’t.

“All the aesthetics and everything is so important to me, that’s just the way I live and breathe,” Hardwicke said. “And the acting, I took years of acting classes before directing my first feature just so I could see ‘how does it feel, that kind of pressure.’ But I think that I really loved the first book the best, to be honest. It was just fresh, it was original. I never read anything like that. Always I’d read about vampires in dark alleys in London and Paris, and this one, they’re in the trees, around in the daytime. They’re in high school. I’m like, ‘That’s insane.’ I loved it. And so, the rest of the books, I didn’t just fall quite as much deeply in love with them as I did the first one. So, I was kind of happy to do the first, I wanted to do the first one, my contract said that I could do the other ones, but I didn’t want to, but I did want other women to direct the other ones. All four movies after me were directed by men and both Divergents and all the Hunger Games. So even though we kind of paved the way, none of the other ones were directed by women. And, of course, Patty Jenkins, of course, Greta Gerwig. A lot of bad ass people came down the doors.”

Sofia Coppola Almost Directed One of the Sequels

While the four Twilight sequels were ultimately all directed by men, filmmaker Sofia Coppola almost directed an installment of Twilight: Breaking Dawn. She recently revealed that she had met with Lionsgate about directing an installment — the final book in the series was split into two movies — but ultimately the meetings never went anywhere.

“We had one meeting, and it never went anywhere,” Coppola revealed. “I thought the whole imprinting-werewolf thing was weird. The baby. Too weird! But part of the earlier Twilight could be done in an interesting way. I thought it’d be fun to do a teen-vampire romance, but the last one gets really far out.”

The Twilight Saga is Coming to SteelBook 4K Ultra HD

Fans of Twilight will get to relive the story in time for the 15th anniversary of the first film with a new, SteelBook collection 4K Ultra HD release. It’s available now with a suggested retail of $119.99.

“Timed to the 15th anniversary of the first film in the franchise, THE TWILIGHT SAGA: THE COMPLETE COLLECTION – 15TH ANNIVERSARY arrives on a SteelBook® 4K Ultra HD™ (4K Ultra HD™ + Blu-ray™ + Digital) on November 14th at Best Buy from Lionsgate. Based on Stephanie Meyer’s best-selling novels with screenplays by Melissa Rosenberg (all five films), the film series was directed by Catherine Hardwicke (Twilight), Chris Weitz (The Twilight Saga: New Moon), David Slade (The Twilight Saga: Eclipse), and Bill Condon (The Twilight Saga: Breaking Dawn – Parts 1 & 2), and a cast that included Kristen Stewart, Robert Pattinson, Taylor Lautner, Peter Facinelli, Elizabeth Reaser, Ashley Greene, Kellan Lutz, Billy Burke, Michael Sheen, and Dakota Fanning.”