“Too Weird”: Why Sofia Coppola Turned Down a 'Twilight' Film

Sofia Coppola, the acclaimed director of films like The Virgin Suicides and Marie Antoinette, has revealed that she considered taking on the final Twilight film, Breaking Dawn, but turned down the opportunity because the concept was "too weird." Breaking Dawn, which is based on the fourth book in Stephenie Meyer's Twilight saga, was split into two parts, with the first part released in 2011 and the second part released in 2012. Both films were directed by Bill Condon.

Sofia, who is now 52, said that she met with producers before Bill boarded the project. However, she ultimately decided to pass on the opportunity because she wasn't a fan of the story's more fantastical elements, such as the imprinting of werewolves on human babies. In an interview with the Rolling Stones to promote her upcoming film Priscilla, she said, “We had one meeting, and it never went anywhere. 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.”

As it turns out, Twilight: Breaking Dawn wasn’t the only major studio opportunity Sofia walked away from. She had reportedly been working on The Little Mermaid live-action remake, however her version wasn’t seen to be commercially viable enough. She said,“Yes, there was [a breaking point]. I was in a boardroom and some development guy said, ‘What’s gonna get the 35-year-old man in the audience?’ And I just didn’t know what to say. I just was not in my element. I feel like I was naive, and then I felt a lot like the character in the story, trying to do something out of my element, and it was a funny parallel of the story for me.”

However, just because Sofia turned down those opportunities, it does not mean she would never touch that part of filmmaking. Sofa said, “I think it’d be fun to do sci-fi and I think it’d be fun to do, not like gory, but I like gothic horror. I don’t have an idea, though.” Can someone lend her hand? We’re waiting patiently.