It’s raining prequels to established franchises in Hollywood, and the latest fictional world to jump on the bandwagon appears to be the Twilight series.
According to sources close to WGTC – the same ones who said Disney was doing an Aladdin sequel, and that Robert Pattinson had clinched the role of Batman, both of which turned out to be true – Lionsgate is planning to make a prequel set decades in the past, which would explore the origin of the original story’s male protagonist, Edward Cullen.
In the books that started the Twilight phenomenon and the films that followed, Edward was a 108-year-old vampire who looked like a regular 17-year-old, and who fell in love with the female protagonist Bella Swan. The relationship that developed between the two is what drove most of the narrative of the series, with Edward finding himself irresistibly drawn towards Bella romantically while constantly fighting against an almost overpowering urge to drink her blood.
From what we understand, this new project is only in the earliest stages of development but will focus on the early parts of Cullen’s life long before he ever met Bella, showing us the human Edward, who was dying of the Spanish flu when he met the vampire Carlisle. It was Carlisle who turned him into one of the undead in order to save his life and then welcomed Edward into his vampire family of peaceful monsters who only drank animal blood.
Of course, the big question here is will Robert Pattinson reprise his role as Edward from the original Twilight films? On the one hand, he’s shown himself to be an accomplished actor in recent years who excels in bringing to light the dark and tortured aspects of his characters. On the other hand, though, he’s been famously dismissive of his role as Edward in the past and the franchise as a whole. And from what we’ve heard, the studio isn’t expecting him to return. Which is perfectly fine as this is a prequel featuring a much younger version of the character, anyways.
We’re told that if Pattinson were to return though, they could shift gears and make this more of a sequel instead but at this point, it’s said that he likely wouldn’t come back and as such, Lionsgate will apparently move forward with a prequel. And as soon as we learn more about what they might have planned for us, we’ll be sure to let you know.
