Director Catherine Hardwicke has identified two actors she’d like to see star in a Twilight reboot. While speaking to actor and podcaster Josh Horowitz, she said Jenna Ortega and Jacob Elordi “would be perfect” as Bella Swan and Edward Cullen in another Twilight movie.
“I mean, he’s amazing. He probably would be Edward today,” Hardwicke said.
“I do think there’s a lot of really cool young actors today. Of course, you just mentioned Jenna Ortega, she’s amazing.”
Given Ortega and Elordi’s success, it would be pretty easy to sell a studio on their ability to lead a reboot. In the past, the Twilight director says she had to convince the powers that be that Robert Pattinson could be one of the film franchise’s leads.
“When he came over to my house, he had black bangs for hair and was kind of out of shape because he was hanging out at the pub all the time,” she said about Pattinson.
“I thought ‘it works not just in person, but it works on screen.’ I had to be sure. Of course, in person, I just got carried away, but you have to be sure — does it really translate [to the screen]?”
As fate and artistic direction would have it, Pattinson was the right actor to play the role of Edward Cullen. The first film of the franchise generated $408 million at the box office on a $37 million budget. The success of the first film opened the door four sequels in the next four years.
