Because time is a flat circle and studios are willing to reboot or revive movie franchises that seem dormant, there’s a “Twilight” television series on the way — and apparently, it’ll be an animated show.
According to a report from Deadline, Lionsgate will be shopping around both the “Twilight” series — which was always intended to be animated — and a “John Wick” show. “We’re going to go out with the ‘Twilight’ series, an animated series, I think there’ll be a lot of interest in that,” Lionsgate’s vice chairman Michael Burns told the outlet.
So what do fans think of cartoon versions of Edward Cullen and Bella Swan — played in the original films by Robert Pattinson and Kristen Stewart — coming to the small screen? They’re definitely surprised by the perceived change of format (despite what Lionsgate told the press, nobody in the general public knew that it was conceived as an animated series), but they’re excited anyway. As @GodzillaMendoza pointed out on X, formerly known as Twitter, “Oh? Oh damn okay. Finally an animated remake of a live action thing! We’ve been talking about that a lot lately on here in the wake of Avatar [The Last Airbender].”
Other fans said they’re all in on an animated “Twilight” saga no matter what, like @infvze, who wrote, “I’m gonna have to watch this. I don’t even care if it’s bad,” pairing the remark with a GIF of Edward Cullen smirking. Meanwhile, @gittanart seemed to petition for the entire entertainment industry to change its ways based on this news, writing, “i can’t stand live action no more!! i want ANIMATED VERSION FOR EVERYTHING NOWWWW.” Meanwhile, @iJaadee referenced one of the best anime shows of all time, saying, “omg this is exciting. i hope it’s top quality animation. demon slayer style s***.”
Not everyone was on board, though. @harvv, for example, asked, “what even is the target audience for that[?]” adding three crying-eye emoji, and @AStateofPete wrote, “I’m so confused by this news.”
Here’s the thing: the idea of “Twilight” as an animated series actually sounds really cool. The franchise has always been seriously heightened and honestly pretty campy — the entire premise of a meek, “unremarkable” teenage girl falling in love with a vampire who’s over 100 years old is silly right at the outset. Think of the now-infamous baseball scene from the first film, the slow-motion fountain sprint in “New Moon,” the over-the-top love triangle between Bella, Edward, and Jacob Black (Taylor Lautner) from “Eclipse,” or the enormous action setpiece from the second part of “Breaking Dawn” that turns out to be nothing but a dream. Now imagine all of those things — and so many more — drawn by expert animators and reimagined in all their glory.
Here’s the thing: the idea of “Twilight” as an animated series actually sounds really cool. The franchise has always been seriously heightened and honestly pretty campy — the entire premise of a meek, “unremarkable” teenage girl falling in love with a vampire who’s over 100 years old is silly right at the outset. Think of the now-infamous baseball scene from the first film, the slow-motion fountain sprint in “New Moon,” the over-the-top love triangle between Bella, Edward, and Jacob Black (Taylor Lautner) from “Eclipse,” or the enormous action setpiece from the second part of “Breaking Dawn” that turns out to be nothing but a dream. Now imagine all of those things — and so many more — drawn by expert animators and reimagined in all their glory.
Aspects of the story like Jacob’s shapeshifting, vampire superspeed, and Bella’s disturbing, deadly pregnancy will be much easier to represent without the burden being placed on live-action stars like Robert Pattinson, Kristen Stewart, or Lautner. Furthermore, certain things that contributed to the film franchise’s absolute silliness, such as the (often middling) special effects and the fact that all of the vampire actors had to wear absurd contacts, likely won’t be an issue on an animated series.
