If you're a fan of the Twilight movies, you might think that Kristen Stewart, Robert Pattinson,
and Taylor Lautner were all perfect in their parts. But the franchise almost had a completely
different cast. Keep watching to discover the alternate-world Bellas, Edwards, and Jacobs.
It's hard to imagine anyone else besides Kristen Stewart playing Bella Swan, but she actually
wasn't the first choice. Twilight author Stephenie Meyer has made it readily clear that the person
she wanted was Sucker Punch star Emily Browning. This has led to rumors that Browning explicitly
turned down the part, but she's made sure to shut down that chatter. As she told MTV in 2009,
"People are coming up to me and saying, 'Oh,
my God. You turned [Twilight] down?' and all this horrible stuff! What actually
happened is that I was asked to audition — not take the part, but to just audition."
Browning had just finished filming the horror movie The Uninvited and wasn't
looking to work again so soon. As she explained,
"I'm not the type of person who can just work back to back. So I was just exhausted,
and I was like, 'I'm sorry, but I just can't sign on to a trilogy right now.'
I was exhausted, and I needed to come home and hang out with my family for a little bit."
Browning hadn't seen the movie at the time of the interview, but she made sure to note,
"I'm sure Kristen [Stewart] did a billion times better job than I would've done."
"I don't think I would've been able to handle it."
"Really?" "I think I would've quit. Absolutely not."
In the wake of Twilight's massive box office success, it was inevitable that
imitators would follow in its wake. This was especially true in 2013, the year after the
franchise came to a close. Numerous young adult fantasies like Beautiful Creatures, The Host,
and The Mortal Instruments: The City of Bones all tried to prove themselves as worthy successors.
That last one starred Lily Collins, who had actually once been up for the role of Bella
in the original Twilight. Collins dropped this revelation while promoting Mortal Instruments,
though she stressed that she never got any further than an audition. As she explained to CraveOnline,
"This was many years ago. I was new on the scene,
new at auditioning, and it was always kind of this, 'What's going to happen?',
everyone in the waiting room waiting for you. One of those anxious days as a young actor."
Collins has no regrets about missing out on the opportunity, as she noted,
"I think everything happens for a reason and everyone who gets the
roles they get were meant to. I'm a firm believer in that."
Ben Barnes landed his first major big-screen acting gig
as the title character in 2008's The Chronicles of Narnia: Prince Caspian.
And he could have followed that up with an even bigger fantasy franchise role,
as he auditioned for the part of Edward Cullen for the first Twilight. Alas, the producers apparently
weren't very keen on casting someone who was already established in another big film series,
or someone who was well into his adult years. As Barnes revealed to the Examiner in 2010,
"There were quite a few auditions. I was the first person they kind of approached
about it. It was all right [...] But then there were two things: First off,
they didn’t want to mix Narnia and Twilight. I think it’s dangerous to mix characters from
franchises while you’re doing one [...] And secondly, I’d still be shooting at age 30,
playing 17, and nobody wants to see that. That would be kind of sad."
Despite things starting out so promisingly,
this marked the end of Barnes' time in the Twilight world before it even began,
which left him free to play Prince Caspian once again in 2010's The Voyage of the Dawn Treader.
In all five Twilight movies, Jackson Rathbone played Jasper Hale,
the adoptive brother of Edward Cullen and the husband of Alice Cullen. But he actually could
have played an even bigger part, as there is a world out there in which he played Edward.
Rathbone divulged this info to MTV in 2009, as he noted that it all came down to the
creative instincts of Twilight director Catherine Hardwicke. As Rathbone recalled,
"I was a choice. I don't think I was [Hardwicke's] first choice."
Without the director's enthusiasm, Rathbone's chances for playing Edward quickly faded away,
and Robert Pattinson was cast instead. But Rathbone nevertheless managed to make his
way into the franchise when he was cast as Jasper. As for what might've been,
he holds no animosity towards his co-star. As he told MTV,
"I think he's the best man for the job. I wouldn't
have another Edward Cullen than Robert Pattinson. He's perfect."
"Jas! Jas! Shh! Shh! It's okay! It's just a little … blood."
Some authors aren't very involved with the film adaptations of their books,
but Stephenie Meyer isn't one of those authors. On the contrary, she's been quite open about
her thoughts on the Twilight films. This was especially true regarding the casting. In the
case of werewolf hunk Jacob Black, that part of course ultimately went to Taylor Lautner,
but if Meyer had had her way, he would've instead been played by Steven Strait.
Strait may not be a household name, but for moviegoers of a certain age, his performance
as Warren Peace in 2005's Sky High made him an instant heartthrob. He was set to headline the
prehistoric blockbuster 10,000 B.C. just as the first Twilight was being cast, so it looked like
he was headed for superstardom. But this career trajectory ultimately didn't help him land the
part of Jacob. Meyer's casting wishes were mostly ignored, including her proposal of Strait as
Jacob, which paved the way for Lautner to step in. While Strait never did graduate to mega-stardom,
he's done just fine for himself thanks to his lead role on the Syfy and Amazon show The Expanse.
In November 2018, Anna Kendrick made headlines when she suddenly recalled
her time hanging out with vampires and werewolves, as she amusingly tweeted,
"Holy s---. I just remembered I was in Twilight."
Though it may have seemingly slipped Kendrick's mind up until that point,
she actually did have a significant part in the franchise as Bella's classmate Jessica
Stanley. It was also a part that another actor vividly remembers auditioning for. Christian
Serratos ended up instead playing Angela, another classmate of Bella's, but she had
actually auditioned for Jessica. As she revealed to MTV News in 2008,
"I initially went in for Jessica. I did the auditions,
and I got called in a couple times for Jessica."
While Kendrick ended up getting that part instead,
Serratos wasn't entirely disappointed. As she noted,
"Reading the books, I fell totally in love with Angela. So when they said I was going
to have the opportunity to audition for Angela, I really took advantage.
I remember walking out of the room and being like, 'OK, this is it.'"
It may not have been the original plan, but Serratos ultimately managed to find
her place in the Twilight franchise, even if it meant having to face some rejection at first.
Pretty Little Liars star Lucy Hale has managed to appear in a number of movies over the years,
including the likes of such horror flicks as Truth or Dare and Fantasy Island. But for
all those ups in her career, she's also had some downs, including losing out on not one,
but two roles in the Twilight franchise. As she revealed to J-14 in 2013,
"I auditioned for [the role of] Alice [Cullen]. I read the books,
and I wanted to be part of the first movie so bad."
That enthusiasm didn't help Hale out, though, as Ashley Greene ended up getting the part instead.
Undaunted, Hale took another crack at the franchise when she auditioned for the part
of Jane in New Moon, but that also didn't work out, as the producers opted to cast
Dakota Fanning. Despite missing out on two chances to be part of the Twilight universe,
Hale has maintained a good attitude about the whole experience. As she told J-14,
"I love everyone they've cast. I'm such a believer in everything happens for a reason,
and it's all about timing. I like where I'm at right now!"
When Summit Entertainment first announced that New Moon had been greenlit,
a number of actors from the first film were attached to return, including, of course,
Kristen Stewart and Robert Pattinson. But one notable cast member absent from that
announcement was Taylor Lautner. At the time, it wasn't clear if he would return as Jacob,
with insiders reporting that the character's dramatic physical transformation between the books
caused the producers to consider recasting the role. So for a hot moment, the hunt was on to
find Lautner's successor. One actor pegged for the part was One Tree Hill star Michael Copon,
who lobbied for it himself by taking to his Facebook page and posting statuses like,
"Michael Copon [is] in a Twilight zone!"
and,
"Michael Copon is the older Jacob Black!"
"I don't buy it."
Though Copon was enthusiastic, Lautner wasn't ready to give up the part without a fight,
so he engaged in extensive weight-training to show producers that he could acquire the
physique transformation. By January 2009, it had become clear that Lautner's exercise
regime had done its job and ensured him the opportunity to keep playing Jacob. Copon,
meanwhile, was left feeling bitten by the cruel whims of fate.
One way that the Twilight films have differentiated themselves from most
other modern major blockbuster franchises is with their relatively small budgets. The first
film had a $37 million budget, while the final entry in the series, Breaking Dawn – Part 2,
bumped that up to $136 million. There's certainly a bit of inflation,
but for comparison's sake, Avengers: Endgame had an estimated budget of nearly $400 million.
One way that Twilight has kept costs down is by casting mostly relatively unknown stars. But at
one point, the series could've utilized a very well-known Oscar-nominated actor
in the form of John C. Reilly, as he was considered for the role of Charlie Swan,
Bella's father. That idea came directly from Stephenie Meyer herself,
who posted on her website that Reilly was her dream pick for the role. Alas, her ambitious
choice never materialized, and there's no evidence that Twilight distributor Summit
Entertainment ever approached Reilly for the part. Instead, it ended up going to Billy Burke.
Interestingly enough, this isn't the only major young adult role that slipped through Reilly's
fingers, as he was offered the part of Haymitch in The Hunger Games, a role that eventually went
to Woody Harrelson. We'll never know for sure if Reilly would've been able to utilize his talents
to their fullest extent in the Twilight movies. But considering his track record for consistently
impressing moviegoers, we're pretty certain it's something we would've wanted to check out.
"For your health!"
Over the course of his career, Channing Tatum has demonstrated some impressive versatility.
He was an old-school song-and-dance man in Hail, Caesar!, he displayed his knack for comedy in 21
Jump Street and Logan Lucky, and he showed off his skills for pleasing the ladies in the Magic Mike
movies. But we've yet to see how he would fare squaring off against vampires and werewolves,
although it's not hard to imagine a world where that could have happened. Tatum was reportedly
on the radar of the Twilight team, particularly screenwriter Melissa Rosenberg, as he was her
first choice to play the vampire Riley in the third film, Eclipse. As she explained,
"There's a very big battle at the end with Riley, and I think Channing would do that
so well. And there are some complexities to that character… He really is tragic [...] He
has to break your heart a little bit at the end [...] Channing could do that beautifully."
Despite Rosenberg's wishes, Tatum never did make his way into the Twilight universe.
Instead, the part went to Xavier Samuel, thus depriving moviegoers
of their god-given right to see what Magic Mike would look like with bloody fangs.
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