FORKS – Catherine Hardwicke, director of the yet-to-be filmed Twilight, declared to Forks that she would return.
“Forks, you are awesome,” she told Forks residents and Washington State Film Office staff.
“We will be back, so prepare for glory.”
Her words raised hopes that at least part of the movie would be filmed in Forks.
“I am more optimistic than I ever have been about this,” said Diane Schostak, executive director of the North Olympic Peninsula Visitor and Convention Bureau.
Hardwicke was joined by three others from Summit Entertainment, which plans to make the film, on a tour of the North Olympic Peninsula last week.
The group was scouting locations for potential film sites for the upcoming movie.
The movie is to be based on a best-selling young adult novel, Twilight, by Stephenie Meyer, who also wrote two sequels – New Moon and Eclipse – which are all set in Forks.
In the novels, the main character, Isabella Swan, leaves Phoenix, where she lived with her mother, and moves in with her father, who is the Forks police chief.
There, Bella meets Edward Cullen, a vampire who becomes her boyfriend.
“We had all read the books recently and were all on the same page,” said Suzy Kellett, director of the Washington State Film Office.
“I think they got to see everything they wanted to.”
The film producers had hoped to begin the pre-production process in October, but that will likely be pushed back to the beginning of 2008, possibly even until March.
In addition to having more daylight hours, March would also provide more appealing greenery for the cameras to capture.
A large chunk of the film will be filmed in Vancouver, British Columbia, Kellett said.
The amount filmed in Forks would depend on the budget and how much of the local amenities the director is intent on capturing.
“Now they are crunching numbers and figuring things out,” Kellett said.
