David Slade Responds to His Own Remarks About Twilight
Posted on Tuesday, May 5th, 2009 by David Chen
Two nights ago, /Film’s Brendon Connelly unearthed an old interview segment in which David Slade said he would rather get shot rather than view Twilight during that film’s theatrical release. This was an interesting stance, since Slade is now slated to direct the third film in the Twilight saga, Eclipse. Slade related a Twitter message he had made from his now-deleted account, in which he described his decision-making process for whether or not to see the film:
Twilight drunk? No, not even drunk. Twilight on acid? No, not even on acid? Twilight at gun point? Just shoot me.
Naturally, this created a firestorm of criticism in the Twilight community. Slade was recently compelled to respond, and Twilight Lexicon has published an e-mail from Slade in which he repudiates his previous remarks. It reads, in part:
When I made these comments, I had neither seen the film nor read the books. I was promoting a comedy short film that I had made for Xbox and every pop culture subject was seen as a possible comedy target. I was being silly and none of the statements were from the heart.
Of course, I have since seen the movie and read the books and was quickly consumed with the rich storytelling and the beautifully honest characters that Stephenie Meyer created.
I would like to reassure everyone involved that I am invested in making the best film that I am humanly capable of, and that I am acutely aware of the power of the original books we serve.
These remarks by Slade were completely necessary and understandable; in fact, it’s hard to imagine him responding in any other way (and doing nothing was not an option). Nonetheless, our viewpoints about Twilight are pretty clear at this point, and for Slade to claim that he became a convert after reading Twilight’s source material really stretches credulity.
While I’m sure many of us would like to see Slade re-iterate, rather than repudiate, how many of us feel about the Twilight franchise, the fact of the matter is that Slade is just at the beginning of what will hopefully be a fruitful career as a talented thriller/horror director. If doing Eclipse means he gets the chance to make something better and more original down the line, then I’ll definitely try not to hold it against him. Much.
David Chen can be reached at davechensemail(AT)gmail(DOT)com.
