Twilight (film)

"When you can live forever, what do you live for?"

- Twilight tagline

Twilight  is the movie adaptation of the novel Twilight, the first book in Stephenie Meyer's Twilight series. Starring Kristen Stewart as Bella Swan and Robert Pattinson as Edward Cullen, it was released November 21, 2008 in North America and December 11, 2008 in Australia. It was released on DVD March 21, 2009, and it is rated PG-13 in the US and 12 in the UK. It was directed by Catherine Hardwicke.

Plot
"I'd never given much thought to how I would die." "But dying in the place of someone I love seemed like a good way to go."

- Bella narrating the opening line

Isabella "Bella" Swan lives in Phoenix, Arizona with her mother Renée and step-father Phil, who is a minor-league baseball player. Phil gets transferred to play baseball in Florida and they decide to live there but Bella decides to live with her father, Charlie, who is the chief of police in Forks, Washington. Bella moves to Forks and is greeted by Charlie's friend, Billy Black, and Billy's son, Bella's childhood friend, Jacob Black. Charlie purchases a truck from Billy as a homecoming gift for Bella.

Bella meets people at Forks High School on her first day, students including Mike Newton, Eric Yorkie, Jessica Stanley, Tyler Crowley and Angela Weber. At the cafeteria, Bella learns about the strange Cullen family, five teenage-adult foster kids adopted by Carlisle, a young doctor in the community, who is 23 years old and married to Esme. In Biology, Edward, one of the Cullen "kids”, seems completely disgusted with Bella and he goes away one second before the bell rings. She yearns to confront Edward but he is absent for almost a week. When he arrives, he seems friendly and kind towards her, explaining that he was gone for "personal reasons". Much to Bella's surprise, Edward's black eyes have turned golden brown.

At the parking lot, Tyler's van goes out of control and is about to crush Bella. Edward, who is sitting by his car, across the lot, far away from Bella, moves quickly and stops the van with his hand, leaving a huge dent in the van's door. Bella tries to get Edward to tell her how he stopped the van, but he warns her against befriending him, and that he might be a bad guy. Bella and her friends go to the La Push beach and Jacob arrives with two of his friends. She persuades him to tell her a tribal story involving the Cullens.

As Bella goes with Angela and Jessica to Port Angeles for dress shopping, Bella goes off by herself to find a book on Quileute legends. Soonafter that, she runs into a dangerous gang about to make their move on her before Edward unexpectedly appears to stop them. Edward and Bella later have a deep conversation regarding his ability to hear people's thoughts and his inability to read Bella's mind, confessing it as "very frustrating". In the meantime, a close friend of Charlie's is found dead in his boat.

Bella uses her book and finds a website about vampires when searching 'The Cold One' on Google. The website shows details about vampires and the descriptions she read match Edward's characteristics. Upon realizing what he is, she confronts him the next day in a clearing in the woods nearby. Instead of being scared of the truth, she just bravely accepts him for what he is: a vampire.

Edward and Bella fall in love and openly show their relationship. Eventually, he introduces her to his vampire family: Carlisle, Esme, Alice, Jasper, Emmett and Rosalie. Soon, the pair realize their love for each other is so strong and he hopes to never lose control when he is around her.

Later on, Bella is offered a chance a human rarely or never gets: to assist a baseball game between vampires. The game goes apparently well, until Alice sees a vision of three nomadic vampires that have been involved in the killings in Forks lately approaching. Edward and Bella prepare to leave, but it's too late. James, a tracker vampire, is intrigued by Edward's protectiveness over a human and wants to hunt Bella for sport. Carlisle tells James, Laurent, and Victoria to leave after James' outburst. However, he wants to kill Bella, and plots a plan to get rid of the Cullens and eat her. Knowing about the plan, the Cullens split up Edward and Bella to save her life. Edward, Emmett, and Rosalie find out James has figured out the truth and has escaped. Esme and Rosalie stay behind to protect Charlie while Edward, Emmett, and Carlisle go to Phoenix where Bella is hiding in a hotel with Alice and Jasper.

James calls and lies to Bella that he has caught her mother and will kill her if Bella doesn't come to a ballet studio alone. Alice, who can see the future, gets to know something terrible will happen in a dark ballet studio. When Jasper and Alice are in the hotel lobby, Bella ditches them and takes a taxi and goes to the studio, where she gets bitten by James on the wrist while he is fighting Edward. James is burned by Emmett, Jasper and Alice, and Edward sucks the venom out of Bella's system, which severed her pain even more. She awakes in the hospital and recovers with her mother by her side. In the end, Edward and Bella attend their high school prom and she asks him to turn her into a vampire to be with him forever, but he kisses her instead. The film ends with James's lover, Victoria, secretly watching the pair dancing and swears revenge.

Development
Twilight was originally optioned by Paramount Pictures' MTV Films. According to Catherine Hardwicke, a script was produced even before the novel was published. It bore little resemblance to the actual novel or the final movie; for example Bella was a track star, and the FBI was chasing the vampires on jet skis. When that option lapsed in summer 2007, the novel was optioned by Summit Entertainment. Catherine Hardwicke was brought in to direct the film. After reading the original script, she went and read the novel. She decided that the script needed to be rewritten from scratch. Melissa Rosenberg was hired for the new version. On November 16, 2007, Summit Entertainment, along with Stephenie Meyer, announced that Kristen Stewart had been cast in the role of Isabella Swan. A month later, on December 11, 2007 it was announced that Robert Pattinson had been cast as Edward Cullen. Summit Entertainment had an open casting call for the role of Jacob Black on January 19, 2008, and Taylor Lautner was cast.

Soundtrack
The Twilight Original Motion Picture Soundtrack debuted at #1 on the Billboard albums sales chart, having sold about 165,000 copies in its first week of release. 29%, or 48,000, were digital downloads. Twilight scored the second biggest digital week for a soundtrack since Nielsen SoundScan began tracking album download sales in 2004.

Score
The score for Twilight was composed by Carter Burwell and released on December 9, 2008 unter the Atlantic label.

Production
Filming in Oregon began in March 2008 and lasted for 44 days, ending on May 2, 2008. Additional footage and some reshoots were made in late August, including the scene where Edward plays piano, the scene where Edward and Bella kiss in the bedroom, and the meadow scene. Hardwicke confessed that she finished working on the film October 31, 2008. Director Catherine Hardwicke claims that finding the perfect meadow for the emotional climax scene was very difficult. Although the scene was set to be filmed near the end of the schedule, the original site they chose was still covered in snow and inaccessible. They then found a forest with boulders and old growth trees, and with time running out, chose to film some of the scene there. However, the director said that after they wrapped the movie, she told them, "I've got to shoot a meadow. Something that looks like a meadow. Or people are going to stone me in the streets." So they shot part of the scene in the middle of the Griffith Park golf course. In order to make Edward sparkle in the sunlight, they worked with Industrial Light & Magic (ILM), George Lucas' special effects company.

DVD and Blu-Ray
The release date for the Twilight DVD and Blu-Ray DVD was March 21, 2009.

DVD Special Features

 * Audio commentary by Catherine Hardwicke, Kristen Stewart, and Robert Pattinson
 * Muse music video: "Super Massive Black Hole"
 * Paramore music video: "Decode"
 * Linkin Park music video: "Leave Out All the Rest"
 * Five extended scenes with director introductions
 * Five deleted scenes with director introductions
 * Seven-part documentary: "The Adventure Begins: The Journey from Page to Screen"
 * Comic-Con "fandom" piece.
 * Comic-Con NY sizzle reel
 * Three trailers
 * Penelope trailer

Blu-Ray Special Features

 * Audio commentary by Catherine Hardwicke, Kristen Stewart, and Robert Pattinson
 * Muse music video: "Supermassive Black Hole"
 * Paramore music video: "Decode"
 * Linkin Park music video: "Leave Out All the Rest"
 * Five extended scenes with director introductions
 * Five deleted scenes with director introductions
 * Seven-part documentary: "The Adventure Begins: The Journey from Page to Screen"
 * Comic-Con "fandom" piece
 * Comic-Con NY sizzle reel
 * Three trailers
 * Penelope trailer
 * Breaking Dawn Live with New Moon teaser