
The director of the upcoming sequel The Twilight Saga: New Moon sat down with Dark Horizons for an interview about the upcoming film. Here’s what he had to say.
Question: After “The Golden Compass”, which possibly had franchise all over it, how reticent were you to take on another film that was in another franchise mold?
Weitz: I was raring to go, because I had been so disappointed by my experience with ‘Golden Compass’ which was meant to be longer. It was meant to flesh out Philip Pullman’s ideas more and really, the version that you saw had been cut to ribbons by the studio. So, I think that there are many good things about it, moments that I can be proud of in which the themes and the characters are right on. But there’s so much missing from it so I sort of felt like I really wanted to do it right this time. I sensed that Summit wanted to make a faithful adaptation of Stephanie’s book, so this was going to be my chance to redeem myself in the fantasy realm.
Question: Where is the dividing line that exists between your aims as a personal filmmaker, the needs of the source material, and the demands of the fans? I mean, do you feel that kind of pressure? Does it concern you at all, going into it?
Weitz: I didn’t feel a tremendous amount of pressure, because in terms of… what one really wants is for someone to go and see the movie that you’re going to make. So, I thought that was covered. I feel like when I’m adapting a novel, which is what I’ve done on the last three movies that I’ve made, my job is to be faithful to the material and to the fans, or rather to the fans’ perception of the book. I still have sort of tremendous freedoms that I enjoy, in terms of the visuals and how I’m expressing the tone and the way that I’m kind of improvising on the theme as it were. Kind of like a musical number. Maybe someday I will sit down, write my own script, and make it precisely the way that I want. But for me, this was precisely the version of New Moon that I wanted to make.
READ THE REST OF THE INTERVIEW AFTER THE JUMP!
(Read the article)