Published by Jeff Leins on: April 21st, 2009
Earlier today, TheWrap.com ran an exclusive story claiming the fourth and final film in the Twilight saga was already in the works. According to the article and an anonymous source, Breaking Dawn is scheduled for late spring 2010.
However, Summit Entertainment executives denied the rumor across the board, only commenting to state there is no production schedule for the fourth and no current plans to shoot in Vancouver (where New Moon is currently shooting).
Patten at TheWrap speculates that a late 2010 release is only natural considering the planned November 2009 release of The Twilight Saga: New Moon and the June 30, 2010 theater date for The Twilight Saga: Eclipse. Robert Pattinson and Kristen Stewart (who play the lead characters Edward and Bella) will finish filming this May and return to Canada late summer for more vampire love in the third movie.
Entertainment Weekly and Twilight screenwriter Melissa Rosenberg say, “Not so fast.” The show-runner for Showtime’s “Dexter” is also the sole writer on all three screenplays for the saga and tells them she is only still finishing the script on Eclipse. Rosenberg said she hasn’t received the usual “manifesto” she gets from author Stephenie Meyer before starting the adaptation process on a fourth script. I can only guess those manifestos include explicit instructions for endless scenes of intense staring. At the very least this story confirms that Rosenberg will stay on to write the whole series.
Another Summit source said, “As far as I know, Stephenie was still having meetings asking, ‘Can we really make this into a movie?’” Apparently Meyer is concerned about the “racy” scenes of a sexual nature compared to the chaste, family-friendly style of the first three.
After Twilight made $380 million on a budget of $37M, the conversations are probably more along the lines of “How can we make the most money off this?” I highly doubt Summit is going to stop at three out of four, considering they’ve already signed a deal with Meyer for the rights to them all.