The Twilight movies that millions of fans saw didn't always look that way.
It's been more than 13 years since the first film in the franchise was released in theaters. The 2008 project focused on the unforgettable relationship between teenager Bella Swan (Kristen Stewart) and vampire Edward Cullen (Robert Pattinson).
While the finished product turned out to be huge success, those behind the project admit that failed scripts had completely different visions of what the films would look like.
According to a new podcast, the team originally wanted Bella to be a "stronger" female character as opposed to a hopeless romantic mooning over a boy. In fact, one of screenwriter Mark Lord's original scripts had Bella blasting vampires away with a shotgun. When director Catherine Hardwicke joined the team, however, she demanded a shift in plot direction.
"I said, 'First of all, this script's got to go in the trash. It's no good. You've got to make it like the book,'" she recalled on the Jan. 12 episode of Spotify's The Big Hit Show podcast. "The original script literally had Bella on jet skis being chased by the FBI. She was the star athlete, nothing to do with the book."
Ultimately, her reaction was spot on as the film led to four more movies in the franchise. And yes, Robert and Kristen remain household names.
"It was sort of exciting to us that somebody like Catherine, who had done such kind of grounded, realistic portrayals of adolescence, saw something in the book that really spoke to her," studio executive Gillian Bohrer shared on the podcast.
In The Big Hit Show's first chapter, host Alex Pappademas has been taking listeners on a journey into how the vampire franchise became a cultural phenomenon.
In between listening to new episodes, fans can read more secrets behind the film in our gallery below.