‘Twilight’ director Catherine Hardwicke reveals insulting gift she received after huge success
Twilight director Catherine Hardwicke has opened up about her Hollywood treatment following the unprecedented success of her 2008 movie.
Speaking with The Guardian, Hardwicke reminisced about the gift she received from Summit Entertainment, the film’s producers, following the triumph of the vampire romance at the box office. Summit hoped for at least $30million, while Twilight hit $408.4m worldwide, smashing that prediction to smithereens.
The director recalled, “I walked into a room with all these gifts, and everybody was congratulating the studio, and they gave me a box. I opened it up, and it was a mini cupcake.”
In comparison, successful male directors could expect gifts such as “a car, or a three-picture deal, or [getting] to do basically whatever you want.”
Hardwicke noted the sexist discrepancies early in her career, stating, “No, people aren’t going to hire more women directors. They’re not going to give you the next job and let you do something great. It was an earth-shattering reality right away.”
After Hardwicke’s success with the first movie, a host of male directors took on the rest of the instalments. Chris Weitz directed New Moon, David Slade directed Eclipse, and Bill Condon oversaw Breaking Dawn Part 1 and Part 2. Despite the cultural impact of the first movie, the last film drew in the most box office revenue, drawing $829.7m. It also holds the record for the highest-grossing film for both Summit Entertainment and Lionsgate.
Writing of the huge impact Twilight had at the time of its release, Far Out commented, “A real Gordian knot of pent-up emotions and controversial themes, be it the books or films, the Twilight Saga remains one of the densest and confounding series to have ever graced popular culture.”
Hardwicke’s other successes include 2003’s Thirteen and 2011’s Red Riding Hood. Before switching to directing, she was a production designer.
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