If you thought Summit wasn’t going to spend more on the recently announced sequel to this weekend’s $69.6 million box-office success Twilight think again. Bill Zwecker at the Chicago Sun-Times reports its two leads, Robert Pattinson and Kristen Stewart, are set to take home $12 million each for New Moon as Edward Cullen and Bella Swan.
The article says Stewart and Pattinson both only took home $2 million for the first film and will get a $10 million bump for the follow-up as well as a nice percentage of the future movies’ box-office take. Both have revealed in interviews they are already signed for a three-picture deal. Can’t help but wonder what kind of pay day each can expect for the fourth film, “Breaking Dawn”, once it comes time to negotiate that bad boy. As for now only New Moon is confirmed for production, but Zwecker goes on to say a third film is also virtually a done deal, based on Meyer’s “Eclipse” novel — though that won’t be confirmed for some time. No surprise there.
Zwecker does point out how director Catherine Hardwicke is still unsigned and alludes to a quote Hardwicke gave the AP saying, ”I want to be sure that [the second film is] going to be done right. I don’t want to rush into it. It’s not like ‘Friday, the 13th’ or ‘Halloween,’ you can’t just do it super fast and knock another one out.” Strangely enough that is exactly how they went into Twilight as screenwriter Melissa Rosenberg only had five weeks to hammer out the script before the writer’s strike began. Rosenberg has been confirmed as returning to pen both New Moon and Eclipse, she is best known for her writing and producing duties on Showtime’s highly successful drama “Dexter”.
Stay tuned as I plan on presenting the following question to you all: “Who should direct New Moon?” You can answer in the comments now, but you may want to hold off until I present my argument.
