Bill Condon to Direct 'Breaking Dawn'

As you know I have been somewhat critical of the possibility of Bill Condon directing the last installment of The Twilight Saga, Breaking Dawn. See previous post. Today, he issued the following note to the fans of the saga and I have become a convert, this note made me smile and shows he has a great sense of humour and understands the fanbase. Hopefully this will result in a great movie(s) - still no confirmation as to whether it will be one or two movies, however those in the know say 'Breaking Dawn' will be two movies.

Source: from Twilight Facebook

A note to fans from Bill Condon

Greetings Twihards, Twifans, Twilight Moms, Team Edward, Team Jacob and Team Switzerland,

I just want to say hello to all of you and let you know that I'm stoked to be getting underway on the adventure of making BREAKING DAWN. As you've probably heard, I've been given a very warm welcome by Stephenie and Team Summit - who are super-focused, as you know, on getting these movies right.

I'm pretty busy bringing myself up to speed on what you already know by heart: I've read BREAKING DAWN twice, rewatched Catherine's and Chris's movies 2-3 times each, have all four CDs playing in my car, and have Catherine's notebook, Mark Cotta Vaz's companion books, and even Volume 1 of the graphic novel here on my desk - a corner of my office is starting to look like Hot Topic. I realize that this barely qualifies me for "newborn" status in the universe you've been living inside for a few years now, but a guy's gotta start somewhere.

Like many of you, I've always been slightly obsessed with vampires, dating back to the prime-time series DARK SHADOWS, which I followed avidly as a kid. But that alone hadn't been enough to get me interested in making a vampire movie, even though my early screenwriting and directing efforts grew out of a great love for horror movies and thrillers. Since making GODS AND MONSTERS thirteen years ago, however, I've been yearning for a return to a story with Gothic overtones.

The wonderful world that Stephenie has created has obviously struck a chord with you, and I don't think it's difficult to see why. For me, her characters are simultaneously timeless, yet very modern. Rooted in a beautiful, real landscape with a great sense of place, Bella, Edward, Jacob, and the rest of the Forks/La Push menagerie, experience emotions that are primal, and universal: desire, despair, jealousy - and it all comes to fruition in BREAKING DAWN. This is a final chapter in the best sense; not just wide in scope and scale, but emotionally charged and intense throughout.

I'm a huge admirer of the already-iconic Kristen, Robert, and Taylor, and wanted to be the one to work with them as they face the challenges of bringing your beloved characters to the end of their journeys. Really, what could be more fun than that?

Please feel free to ask questions in the comments section below, and I'll do my best to answer them. I hope that this will be the first of many occasions I'll get to check in with you as we set to work bringing BREAKING DAWN to the screen. I am excited and grateful to have all of you alongside me for my TWILIGHT journey.

All the best,
Bill Condon

P.S. Answer #1: No, there won't be any musical numbers

Final Eclipse Trailer!

Dakota Fanning, who plays Jane in The Twilight Saga, debuted the new (and final according to Summit) Eclipse trailer today on Oprah - and it looks awesome!! Not that I'm biased but Eclipse is my favourite of the books and this movie looks like it will live up to the hype.

David Slade, director of Eclipse, is back in Vancouver as of this morning for the pick-up shots discussed last week. If the movie is as intense as this trailer...it will rock da house! Judge for yourselves.

Glee Flashmob in Seattle

There have been many Glee-themed flash mobs which have taken place around the world. Glee has indeed become a global phenomenon. Below is a video taken at Westlake near Seattle.  I recall last May when the pilot debuted and not too many people had heard of Glee, actually their twitter account had 1,200 of us diehards, now it's just under 150,000. At that time, they were concerned that Glee was not yet a trending topic, oh how times have changed in just one year. As I have said before this show is my favourite program. Glee airs on Tuesday nights at 9pm. Wish there was a Glee channel - 24/7 Glee, I would watch that.

The Twilight Drama, er Saga - Eclipse

On April 11, I happened to be on twitter as David Slade, director of Eclipse, tweeted the following:

This was quickly followed by another tweet claiming his twitter account had been hacked-it had a funny cartoon as twitter profile pic which showed a guy pouring sulphuric acid in his eyes. David is bit of a jokester, dry English humour, will be interesting to see how that translates to 'Eclipse'. Then as sudden as the tweets appeared, they were deleted.

Gossip mongers ran amuck with speculation that Summit is freaking out about the final product and plans were announced on April 14 to do some re-shooting (pick-ups) with some of the principals, namely Rob and Kristen in Vancouver in the upcoming weeks-the studio said 3 days have been set aside. David Slade will also be here. Doing re-shoots is apparently not unusual. Larry Richman, an independent film journalist, tweeted the following:

My take on reshoots: "Reshoots" make it sound like something is wrong but in most cases it's nothing like that at all. In most cases it's simply that things are discovered during the post-production process that can't be easily fixed technically. It could be something as mundane as a crew member accidentally being seen in a shot, a mike visible, a car in the background, or other things visible that shouldn't be and can't be removed digitally or by creative editing. In more extreme cases there may be feedback from test screenings which show that certain scenes were too confusing, or revealed too much or too little, or annoyed people, or were too short and should have been longer (for which no additional footage exists). Or possibly they didn't have the necessary coverage -- camera angles. Sometimes there are continuity errors that aren't discovered until post-production, like someone wearing a different shirt or objects in a room or a shot that weren't there in one shot but appear in another. Bottom line: reshoots don't necessarily mean the production is "troubled" or that something is "wrong" with the film. Of course, that is a possibility.

So all's well? Probably not but this speculation makes it all so much more interesting doesn't it? Summit has been mum on the subject; it has been said that the studio and David Slade have had a tumultuous relationship-certainly did not start well with Slade dissing the Twilight Saga altogether before he was tapped to be director of 'Eclipse'. Slade's twitter profile location right now says he is "at the edge of the abyss" his bio states "He stared into the abyss and as expected the abyss stared back" this quote is from Friedrich Nietzsche which reads "Whoever battles with monsters had better see that it does not turn him into a monster. And if you gaze long into an abyss, the abyss will gaze back into you." Wonder who the monster is in this scenario-the fictional kind or a dig at his current employer.

A few hours ago, Summit announced that the second and final 'Eclipse' trailer will debut on Oprah, Friday, April 23. This brings us back to David Slade's tweet that he had seen a rough cut of a new trailer-so it is true after all. I get a kick out of all the backing and forthing, however, people need to realize that this is called show business for a reason, the studio's priority is to protect its product and bottom line, therefore if that requires adding a bit of this, a bit of that, that's what they will do. We have an extra 2 months of time; 'New Moon' was completed at the end of May 2009 and released November 20, 2009; 'Eclipse' was finished on October 29, 2009 and will be released on June 30, 2010-there is ample room for tweaking.

Whatever the case, I think 'Eclipse' will be great. Let's face it these movies will never win any traditional film awards. 'Twilight' the first movie was a small movie in every sense, it really was an independent film; 'New Moon' had the benefit of having a bigger budget and PR machine which went into overdrive as soon as the movie was finished-too much I think for by the time we saw the movie in November we had already seen the movie through the many trailers that were released. Keeping something in the vault and surprising the viewers appeals to me - so I'm fine with two trailers and let the mystery-building begin.

Female Rockers - 'The Runaways' Legacy

Breeanna Hare, special correspondent to CNN, has written a great article entitled "Where are the modern-day 'Runaways'?" She writes that women have come a long way in the music industry to be regarded on the same footing with male rock stars, however at times it still appears to be a bit of a struggle to be taken seriously.

To be honest, I had never heard of 'The Runaways' until last summer when Kristen Stewart (she of Twilight fame) was selected to play Joan Jett in a biopic featuring the first all-female rock band. As a child of the 1980s I was familiar with Joan Jett ('I Love Rock and Roll') but never knew that she began the first female rock band. My first introduction to female rockers were Stevie Nicks, Bonnie Tyler, Melissa Etheridge and of course Deborah Harry of Blondie - as for bands, The Bangles and The Go-Go's.

The movie, 'The Runaways' is a great and gritty portrayal of what it was like in the mid-1970s for women to be in control of their own destiny - something which was quite new for the male-dominated music industry. One of my favourite lines of the movie occurs when Joan takes a guitar lesson only to be told by the instructor that women do not play electric guitars. Think this may have been the first and last guitar lesson she took then taught herself to play.

As Belinda Carlisle of The Go Go's sang "We've got the beat, yah, we've got the beat!" Rock-on sisters.

Is Bill Condon About To Sink Fangs Into 'Twilight' Saga's Two Final Segments?

Mike Fleming of http://www.deadline.com/ reports that Bill Condon has emerged as the number one choice to direct the final two installments of The Twilight Saga: Breaking Dawn, I’m told. Summit Entertainment hasn’t signed him, but I’m told that after several strong meetings, they are negotiating. Condon was among a list of A-list directors approved by Summit and Twilight author Stephenie Meyer. That list included Gus Van Sant, Sofia Coppola and Fernando Meirelles. Shooting will begin in the fall, and I heard the plan is to shoot two films back to back.

Having gone through much-publicised directorial choices for New Moon and Eclipse, this is nothing new to Twi-hards. However, I must say was a bit surprised by this choice. All I can think of is seeing singing and dancing vampires and werewolves, of course that is silly except if Summit is thinking of adapting it into a play/musical at some point in the future-don't laugh, would not dismiss it too quickly.

Bill Condon is credited with both the writing and directing of Dreamgirls, which went on to win the Best Supporting Actress Oscar for Jennifer Hudson so this could mean higher callibre directing and someone who is in tune (no pun intended, well maybe) with the screenplay. Regardless of who directs the final installment of the Twilight Saga, we will still go see it...a few times.

Fun fact - Hinton Battle who starred in Dreamgirls was also in the musical episode of Buffy the Vampire Slayer 'Once More With Feeling' so there is a vampire connection after all :) Speaking of Buffy, Joss Whedon should have been considered 'grr, argh', now that would have been interesting...

Everyone Needs Some 'Glee'!

It has been a long wait since the last new episode of Glee aired late 2009. Four months of anticipation & excitement have been building leading up to the debut of the next 9 new episodes on Tuesday, April 13. "Glee, by its very definition, means opening up yourself to joy" that's how the show was introduced to us in May 2009.

Glee is my favourite new show of 2009. As I watched the pilot almost one year ago, I hoped that others might like it as much as I did...usually the shows I adore are cancelled soon after their debut or simply disappear never to return again (such as 'Jack & Bobby', 'Men in Trees', and 'Moonlight' PS-CBS, you missed the boat on this one-you should have hung in for another few months until 'Twilight' was released in November 2008).

So it was with some hesitancy that I allowed myself to really like the first show but who could resist the charm of these quirky characters and the music. iTunes recorded a marked increase in sales of songs featured on Glee - for some bands this means finding new popularity with a new generation.

The cast of Glee appeared on Oprah today making them officially a hit. The writing and acting is top-notch, I really hope that both will be sustained for what should be a TV gig to last a few years (5 at least) thus securing syndication so we can enjoy many years of Glee!

Clever Advertising (not an oxymoron)

It is not very often that I actually take note of advertising on TV - usually, I turn to my laptop, change the channel or walk away and do dishes, etc. During the Olympics there were some very clever ads, such as Bombardier, Visa and Chevrolet. Commercials which you would never see at other times largely due to the cost involved of buying ad space.

Over the past few weeks, two advertising campaigns (PS-no product endorsements are implied) for Hyundai Canada Sonata 2011 and 'Arctic Sun' by Tropicana Canada have peaked my interest. Both campaigns are very innovative and creative, some would say isn't that what advertising should be - yes, however most times this is just not the case. I should add that this does not want me to run out and purchase either of these products, yet I applaud the ingenuity in producing these ads.

Tropicana Canada approaches product promotion from a unique perspective for their 'Brighter Mornings for Brighter Days' campaign. Excerpt from the description of the making of this commercial:

The Tropicana brand is taking a uniquely Canadian approach in the trend of expedition marketing through its new “Brighter Mornings for Brighter Days” campaign launching on March 1st. And it couldn’t come at a better time, when Canadian pride is at an all-time high.

To kick-off the national campaign, Tropicana literally brought a brighter morning to the frigid, remote Arctic town of Inuvik, Northwest Territories, where its 3,500 residents live without a sunrise for weeks each winter. A team of Canadian filmmakers captured the monumental raising of the sun in Inuvik for a series of documentary-style commercials, which will be featured prominently in the new campaign.



Hyundai Canada launched their campaign a few weeks ago. Love that Jeff Bridges is the voice of Hyundai; he also is/was the voice of Duracell batteries. This commercial caught my eye just a few days ago, love the music and how the cars seem to do a dance before they align themselves like keys on a piano.