SAN DIEGO — Bringing joy to the hearts of sparkly vampire fans, the cast and director of the Twilight Saga series landed at Comic-Con International to tease the final chapter of the franchise — including details of the much-hyped wedding between main characters Bella Swan and Edward Cullen.
They also joked about continuing the blockbuster bloodsucker franchise with a possible sequel after the money-minting movie franchise goes out in a blaze of glory.
The Twilight Saga: Breaking Dawn — Part 1 doesn’t come out until November, but fans have been wondering for years how the final book of Stephenie Meyer’s vampire saga would be filmed for a PG-13 audience, considering that in addition to the wedding, it contains some of the more graphic baby-making and baby-birthing scenes in young adult literature.
(Spoiler alert: Vampy spoilers follow.)
“We did try to go as hard-core as we could,” Kristen Stewart told fans in Comic-Con’s Hall H on Thursday morning, talking about her character Bella Swan’s bloody birth scene.
Her co-star, Taylor Lautner, who plays werewolf Jacob Black, said the scene in Meyer’s book “was a lot to take in,” but in the film, “the birth scene was phenomenal.”
During the panel discussion, which included stars Robert Pattinson, Nikki Reed, Ashley Greene, Elizabeth Reaser and Julia Jones, director Bill Condon presented never-before-seen clips of the forthcoming first part of Breaking Dawn. Attendees saw the honeymoon of Edward (Pattinson) and Bella, plus a scene showing Jacob trying to protect the Cullens from his former wolf pack.
Not all of the Comic-Con talk was quite so intense. In fact, most was light-hearted. During a press conference prior to the panel, Pattinson even joked about what sequels could exist after Breaking Dawn.
“They’ll have, like, [The Twilight Saga]: Breakfast Time,” Pattison dead-panned.
Lautner also cracked wise about the technical difficulties of acting out things that were unique to the books, like the scene where his character has to “imprint” on Bella and Edward’s child.
“I [had to] walk into the room on the verge of killing this baby, and then: Stop, twist, and imprint … whatever that means,” Lautner said during the press conference. “It was challenging.”
For his part, Condon commended his actors, discussed his love of the vampire genre and told the Comic-Con audience that Stewart “is the biggest fan of the books you’ll ever want to meet.”
Pattinson got screams from female fans in the audience for mildly lifting his shirt in the honeymoon scene that was shown, reinforcing the Beatlemania-like frenzies that follow the film’s male stars. And when one fan asked Pattinson what it was like to work with attractive women, Stewart commented, “that’s never been asked at one of these conventions.”
“It’s fantastic to be surrounded by hot girls all the time,” Pattinson responded. “That’s why I became an actor.”
The Twilight Saga: Breaking Dawn — Part 1 hits theaters Nov. 18.
