Just as David Slade communicated with Twilight fans, it seems that Bill Condon is striving to keep us in the loop with what’s going on with Breaking Dawn!  From us at CBA, THANK YOU Mr. Condon for the note!  The next installment of the Twilight Saga is so important to us as fans and we sincerely appreciate keeping us informed on what’s happening with the movie production.  THANK YOU THANK YOU!!

Hello fans!

Has it really been five months (and a day) since my last dispatch? In my defense, they’ve been five months spent immersed in the world of TWILIGHT – something I’m sure you can all appreciate. We’re in the thick of pre-production now, juggling everything from casting to storyboarding to location scouting, getting it all ready to go, but I do want to take a moment to announce to you exclusively a few of the amazing production team members who are hard at work alongside me, bringing these movies to life. I hope you’ll be as excited about them as I am:

Guillermo Navarro, who won an Academy Award for the beautiful PAN’S LABYRINTH, is our cinematographer. Guillermo and I have been painstakingly planning each shot, with a team of very talented storyboard artists.

Michael Wilkinson, our costume designer, is bringing his brilliant vision to the styles of all your favorite characters. Michael’s created fantastic looks for 300, WATCHMEN, and the upcoming TRON: LEGACY – just wait ’til you see his take on the vampire witnesses who come to Forks from around the globe.

Jean Black, our makeup designer, has worked extensively with the Coen Brothers and David Fincher, most recently making exquisite, award-winning contributions to THE CURIOUS CASE OF BENJAMIN BUTTON. I’m honored to be working with her.

Richard Sherman, with whom I made GODS AND MONSTERS and KINSEY, is on-board as our production designer. Richard’s one of my oldest collaborators and a terrific designer, and you may be interested to know that he also happens to be a lifelong vampire aficionado.

Our Oscar-winning visual effects supervisor John Bruno has been responsible for some of the most memorable special effects ever, with his groundbreaking work on display in everything from POLTERGEIST to AVATAR. He and his team are working intensely to develop solutions to the host of special effects challenges that Stephenie created for us in BREAKING DAWN, including that remarkable kid…

Wonderful, imaginative people all and very exciting, intense times for us. Even with the months of work we’ve already put in, we’re barely underway on the journey, and I do hope to get back to you much sooner next time with more news. Until then, thanks for your warm reception and continued support!

Very best regards,

Bill

IT looks like Summit is sparing no expense for Breaking Dawn with the production staff. This is SO exciting to see that we are getting people who worked on ‘The Curios Case of Benjamin Button’, ‘Avatar’ and MANY more!!! What do you think fellow Twilighters?!?!

The Official Twilight Facebook announced the filming location of Breaking Dawn today! The movie will be filmed in both Vancouver, and Baton Rouge, Louisiana.

Summit Entertainment’s THE TWILIGHT SAGA: BREAKING DAWN will be filmed in both Baton Rouge, Louisiana and Vancouver over the next year starting this fall. The next chapter of THE TWILIGHT SAGA will be released as two separate films with the first of the two slated to be released in theatres on November 18, 2011.

Academy Award® winner Bill Condon will direct both films starring Kristen Stewart, Robert Pattinson and Taylor Lautner along with Billy Burke as Charlie Swan as well as returning members of the Cullen Family including Peter Facinelli as Carlisle, Elizabeth Reaser as Esme, Jackson Rathbone as Jasper, Nikki Reed as Rosalie, Ashley Greene as Alice and Kellan Lutz as Emmett.

The project, based on the fourth novel in author Stephenie Meyer’s Twilight series, is currently being written by Melissa Rosenberg with Wyck Godfrey, Karen Rosenfelt and Stephenie Meyer producing.

THE TWILIGHT SAGA: BREAKING DAWN illuminates the secrets and mysteries of this spellbinding romantic epic that has entranced millions.

Thoughts on the location? What parts of the movie do you think will be filmed in Louisiana?

source @twilight

Matt Donnelly of the LA Times interviewed Melissa Rosenberg about the script for Breaking Dawn I and II.  Here is a portion of what she had to say in that interview. 
Of note, pre-production begins July 1.  Also, Stephenie Meyer supports her bringing invention into the storyline. 
Remember my question about how you feel about them going “off book”? 
And maybe the birth scene will be “fade to black”?  That portion she is leaving up to Bill Condon though! (Click here for that interview.)

Melissa Rosenberg: It’s going really well — it’s a very big challenge. It’s just thick with mythology and characters and choosing which stories to bring forward. It’s a beast, but I think it’s going well.

MoG: Stephenie Meyer has been consulting on the films from the start. Given this is the final chapter, what are her major priorities for the fans?

MR: She has always only demanded one thing, and that is that we adapt the book. All of her really big boundaries have to do with just adapting the book. That said, she isn’t terribly precious about things. She’s supportive of my bringing invention to it.

MoG: Speaking of which, [spoiler alert!] fans are crazy over Bella losing her virginity, the graphic birth of her and Edward’s child, and her vampire transformation. Any idea how you’ll handle such serious imagery?

MR: On the fan site, on Facebook, all the comments are “It has to be R rated! You have to show the childbirth! Gore and guts and sex!” For me it’s actually more interesting to not see it. You know, you can do childbirth without seeing childbirth … it doesn’t mean it’s any less evocative of an experience.

MoG: Kristen Stewart arguably has the most work to do in the final films. Is she up to the challenge?

MR: Kristen Stewart is really, I think, tremendous. And one of the reasons why we got Bill Condon. And Chris Weitz, for that matter; they all want to work with her.

MoG: A lot of the fans credit you with giving Bella more backbone in the films than she has in the books. Was that something you did actively?

MR: That’s something I did very consciously. What’s interesting is that it’s all there — the strength was there, it was just kind of tearing away some things. You know, she’s human. She doesn’t have the physical strength of Edward and all of them. So how do you make the character strong when she’s physically vulnerable? There really is a goal to give her stamina and other strengths. She really is a role model.

MoG: Your prior credits ["Dexter," "Ally McBeal"] definitely incorporate strong females. Is that a place you’ll return to after “Twilight” is done?

MR: Absolutely. What I really want to do is create great roles for women. And I’m not talking Nicholas Sparks romance. I think women’s roles have gotten ghettoized in these sort of places. … I’m thinking women in action, comic books, or like the Tony Soprano of women. We need some complex roles.

MoG: Back to “Twilight”; this franchise has dozens of characters. Anyone in particular you love writing for?

MR: I love Charlie, Billy Burke’s character [Bella's father]. Writing for him is so spectacular, he’s so funny and wry and every scene he’s in he just takes. There’s a scene in “Eclipse” where Bella tells him she’s a virgin, and it’s the funniest, most awkward scene I’ve ever seen on film.

Rosenberg says pre-production will begin July 1, with both films slated to film back to back at the start of October.

When MTV News caught up with Rosenberg to talk about “Eclipse,” she said she was going to leave a lot of those hard decisions, like how to show Bella giving birth to vampire spawn Renesmee, to director Bill Condon. “From a screenwriter standpoint that’s gonna land more squarely in the director’s hands,” she teased. “That’s one of those things [where] I kind of say [and] make a few sort of general suggestions on the page and say, ‘Go! Go, Bill! Do it!’ ”

Well, are you more worried now or less?

Oh, for what it is worth, here is what Ted Casablanc’s “Deep Twilight” source said:

[Melissa] knows what fans want,” our Twi source assures us, regarding the screenwriter’s idea to make Breaking Dawn much more physical. “The book calls for a lot more heat, so that’s why Melissa is all for making that happen, since it’s really what Stephenie wrote in the first place. Stephenie just wants it to stick to the book. Plus, the actors involved seem pretty enthused about taking it up a notch.”

Good, now that sex is out of the way, here’s what Rosenberg told us at the Eclipse press conferences about the logistics of splitting the movie up:

“Nothing has actually been decided, but the natural split is somewhere between she’s human in movie one, then she’s a vampire. She’s human and pregnant in one; she’s a vampire and a parent in two. Bill Condon has been looking at that from a visual standpoint. That said, there’s a lot of room about where that moment is.”

“This is the point where she should actually become equipped enough to make all these decisions,” Stewart says. “And I know she’s done that in every movie she’s been like, ‘No, I know what I want,’ but I dunno I feel like she has to go through the things she’s gone through to sound like she knows what she’s talking about. She needs to grow up a bit. The fog, the haze that Edward creates around her [in 'New Moon'] fades in ‘Eclipse’ and I think it’s really important for her to realize she’s choosing to be with him and that she doesn’t have to be with him.”

“It was exciting to play with Taylor, just because she finally sees Jacob, she finally sees what the audience sees. So there was like a lot of new things to play.”

“I don’t know yet. I had one meeting with him and it was awesome, so cool,” Stewart volunteers. “He was talking a lot about — because we’ve had to cram so much story into one time, you miss a lot of nuanced stuff for fans and readers of the book. Just the little things have to go. Those are the first things skimmed off the top and in this one. And I think he’s going to put it back in Bella’s head [for 'Breaking Dawn'].”
“A lot of people thought they felt that, like, from ‘Eclipse’ they thought it was a little bit more first person, like it was a little more character driven or whatever, but I think he’s gonna do a really good job of letting the story filter out without slamming you over the head with it,” Stewart says. “Not that we’ve done that, but I feel like some of my expositional lines which are not in the book because we are telling the story, we’re not gonna have to do any of that because we have more time. I can’t wait to get some of the details back in, y’know what I mean?

Did you catch what Wyck Godfrey said in his FearNet interview about filming Breaking Dawn in 2 and 3D ?
“I know that part of a way to differentiate the two movies would be to have one be in 2D, and when she becomes a vampire we move into 3D.”

His statement pretty much confirms that Breaking Dawn will be split just after Bella dies, as we’ve predicted.

I don’t know if there is enough male-attracting “action” in that first half though. I mean, I know we Twilight fans would be quite content with the movie consisting of the wedding and honeymoon but seeing how Summit so likes to attract boys to this series, I don’t think that will happen. Given that, there could be a lot of rewriting of the first half and heck, probably the second half of Breaking Dawn as well. That battle is more a game of chess than one with blood and gore.

So, how will you feel if some creative license is taken with the story itself in Breaking Dawn?

How much “off-book” will you tolerate and what might you suggest? Stephenie Meyer is a producer, so how far could they go anyhow????

Very interesting interview by FearNet with TwilightSaga producer Wyke Godfrey. He seems to ‘get it” – “The core of the story is character based, and you have to nail that first — that’s why people love the franchise, but they also love the mythology and the genre elements of it.”

This is interesting too. Speaking about Bella, he says, “…needs to have come to a place where she not only goes, ‘Okay, I’m going to become a vampire’ but also that she has a heightened understanding of what that means. We all felt that we needed to articulate that and make it clear, not only to Edward, but also to the audience.”

As far as the rating, it seems to be securely at PG 13 – “I’m unwavering in my belief that these will be PG-13 movies.”

And look at what he says about 3-D! “I know that part of a way to differentiate the two movies would be to have one be in 2D, and when she becomes a vampire we move into 3D.” Now if that doesn’t gt you intrigued, I don’t know what will!

Finally he clearly states that Breaking Dawn will start filming in November.

Here is the full interview:

Why was David Slade the right choice to direct Eclipse?

Honestly, I loved Hard Candy. Ever since I saw that movie I was sending him everything I had. I loved the performances he got from Patrick Wilson and Ellen Page, I loved the filmmaking and the way he kept one small house, and many times one small room, alive and tense and exciting for an entire movie. And then, I saw 30 Days of Night and liked the genre elements of that, and how he had a real vision for how he wanted that world to look. That was kind of the perfect combination: his ability to tell a story and elicit amazing performances in Hard Candy, and to create a world in 30 Days of Night, which were sort of the combined qualities we were looking for in a director. So, coming off of Chris [Weitz], who is a really classic filmmaker and creates beautiful imagery, but very romantic imagery, we wanted to go in a little bit of a different direction and create something that had a little bit more anxiety and edge to it, as Bella really struggled with her choices, between Jacob and Edward, between becoming a vampire and staying human… we thought [David's] style would bring a lot to all of that stuff.

Along those lines, what makes Bill Condon right for Breaking Dawn?

The themes and the story of Breaking Dawn are very mature; Bella and Edward are going through very adult things, from marriage to childbirth, motherhood, parenthood, and the evolution of their relationship into something that is a partnership, which is not the way Edward has viewed this relationship with her before. Bill’s a very mature filmmaker; he’s dealt with very difficult themes and stories in his career. He’s also gotten Academy Award nominations for actors in the last three films that he’s done.  And from a performance standpoint, Kristen’s going to be diving into stuff that she hasn’t been through. It’s one thing that she can remember first love and falling in love and being torn between two guys, probably, but the idea of dealing with some of these issues and having a filmmaker that can really help them as actors was vital to Breaking Dawn. Also, the visual nature of Dreamgirls made us feel like he could create something with a real scope and grandeur to it.

There’s also his earlier work: Candyman: Farewell to the Flesh, Sister, Sister…

He’s a genre guy! That’s really exciting, that in some ways he’ll be coming full circle and utilizing his early roots with the stuff he’s been doing recently. I think that’ll be fun for him.

The whole idea of balancing horror and fantasy elements with a greater love story also comes up in Eclipse, which ramps up the genre elements considerably from the first two Twilight films. Was there ever an impulse to go even darker, to tip the balance more towards horror with this installment?

I think it’s not as mathematical as that. The core of the story is character based, and you have to nail that first — that’s why people love the franchise, but they also love the mythology and the genre elements of it. You want to make sure that you’re tracking Bella’s internal struggle along with the external conflicts of the movie, which is what’s happening in Seattle, what dangers are descending upon Forks and threatening both families she loves, the wolves and the Cullens. I think that’s something that we, Melissa Rosenberg, and Stephenie Meyer worked very hard on in the treatment stage and at the script stage to feel like we had a screenplay that represented both sides of that story.

The production notes quote you talking about the Eclipse production as a sort of summer camp, not without “the squabbles that families have.” Can you elaborate on that?

Click here to read the rest.

*screams uncontrollably*

AAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAA !!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

MORE EDWAAAAAAAAAARD!!! MORE PREMIERES!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!! MORE EDWAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAARD (I know I am repeating myself)

Source

Got to love Jackson Rathbone.

From MTV

“Twilight” star Jackson Rathbone can’t believe his luck: Not only is he part of a hugely popular franchise, but he’s been able to work with some of his favorite directors. When MTV caught up with Rathbone, who is in two big summer movies — “Eclipse” and M. Night Shyamalan’s “The Last Airbender” — he revealed he can’t wait to start work on “Breaking Dawn” with Oscar-winner Bill Condon at the helm.

“I have not yet had a chance to meet Bill Condon, but I think it’s going to be an amazing experience to work with an Academy Award-winning director of his caliber,” he said. “Getting to work with these incredible directors that I’ve admired, ever since filming “The Last Airbender” with M. Night, even the first “Twilight” with Catherine Hardwicke. I really loved her directorial debut, [which] I think was ‘Thirteen.’ I thought that was incredible, and she co-wrote it with Nikki Reed, who’s a good friend of mine now.”

Rathbone said he’s still trying to wrap his mind around it all and just wants to bask in the glow.

“I find myself working with people I’ve dreamed of working with. It’s an amazing position to be in,” he said. “It’s a privilege, not a right. … I’m basking in it, loving it, because as an artist, you get those moments, you live ‘em up.”

As for “Breaking Dawn,” the musician/actor said he knows just as much as we do. Which is not a lot.

“They’re keeping ‘Breaking Dawn’ under wraps,” he said. We’re all waiting on a script right now. It’s all up in the air — we don’t even know when we’re going to film.”

Malicious Mandy has done some great work digging up info on the possibility of Breaking Dawn being filmed in Louisiana.  Here is a bit of what she found:

When Mike Scott from The Times-Picayune, called Summit for a statement he received a very vague response:

Here’s it is, in its entirety: “No details have been confirmed regarding ‘Breaking Dawn’ aside from the fact that Bill Condon will be directing.”

This is typical Summit fashion and not surprising, wait, I am surprised he got a statement, but we all know Summit can be pretty secretive especially when it relates to their prized child the Twilight Saga.

However, there is other news, more tangible, facts in the way of a paper-trail that suggests indeed Louisiana COULD be used for (part of?) Breaking Dawn.

Mike Scott continues:

The second, more telling, development comes in the form of incorporation papers filed last week with the Louisiana Secretary of State’s office by an agent for Summit and establishing a new corporate entity called “TSBD LOUISIANA, L.L.C.” — which would seem to stand for “Twilight: Saga Breaking Dawn.”

Of course, filing incorporation papers is a long way from booking soundstages and crewing up — but as early signs go, it’s a good one that there might be truth to these rumors.

Please visit her post for more details and her theories on what is going on.

So what do you think, what would Breaking Dawn be like, if they were allowed to take the movie where the story would like to go?

by Jen Yamato of FearNet