Twilight to return for five short Facebook films
In news that is sure to divide movie fans, vampire romance franchise Twilight is to be revived for five short films.
Five female directors will be selected to bring the popular characters back to life in mini-movies shown exclusively on Facebook in 2015. However, none of the original cast is expected to star.
The series, titled The Storytellers – New Creative Voices of ‘The Twilight Saga’, is backed by the Women in Film organization.
A panel of judges includes Kristen Stewart, who plays Bella Swan, and Stephenie Meyer, who wrote the original bestselling books, will mentor the chosen directors.
Kate Winslet, Octavia Spender, Julie Bowen, Frozen co-director Jennifer Lee, Twilight director Catherine Hardwicke and producer Cathy Schulman are also believed to be involved.
Fans will then help decide the winner through Facebook and crowdsourcing platform Tongal.
“The female voice is something that has become more and more important to me as I’ve worked in the film industry,” said Meyer.
“I’m honored to be working with Women in Film, Lionsgate and Facebook on a project dedicated to giving more women a chance to be heard creatively.”
The representation of women in the film industry has come under fire in recent times. A United Nations-backed report, published last week, found that although women represent half of the world’s population, just 30.9 per cent of all speaking characters in movies are female.
The study also noted that when films featured a female director or writer, the number of female characters on screen increased significantly, indicating that hiring more female filmmakers could help the problem.
Michael Burns, Lionsgate vice chairman hinted in an interview with The Times that the studio has not ruled out distributing its own feature-length movies.
“This is just the beginning, a template if you will,” he said. “You can probably guess what might be coming next.”
The Twilight films grossed $3.3 billion at the global box office when they were released between 2008 and 2012.
