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.