Adam Sandler almost produced The Twilight Saga.
Actor Jackson Rathbone, who played Jasper Hale in the iconic vampire franchise, has recalled how the 58-year-old comedian’s Happy Madison briefly had the rights to the big screen adaptation’s of Stephanie Meyer’s books, before Summit Entertainment turned the series into a global blockbuster with five films between 2008 and 2012.
Speaking during a Meet The Cullens panel at Fan Expo Canada, which was moderated by Collider’s Maggie Lovitt, he said: “This IP … the book was passed around. Paramount passed on it. Big studios passed on it.”
“I heard the story and this is true — Adam Sandler’s company, Happy Madison, actually bought the rights to it and owned it for like a hot minute until they realized they couldn’t figure it out either.”
Rathbone joked that the film series could have looked ver different under the Happy Madison Productions banner.
He quipped: “Was Adam Sandler gonna play Edward?”
Twilight”/>Summit Entertainment
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Rathbone also admitted he’d love to see his character Jasper get a sequel movie, after Meyer published the Midnight Sun companion novel in 2020, retelling the original Twilight story from Edward Cullen’s perspective, rather than Bella Swan.
Elsewhere during the panel, which also included Peter Facinelli (Carlisle Cullen) and Kellan Lutz (Emmett Cullen), he suggested: “I actually would really love to see Jasper’s story be told, and it would be one of those things where they have the technology, they can de-age me — it’d be sweet … But, I’m also open to passing the torch.”
Jasper was a Confederate soldier before being turned into a vampire, and the actor thinks his violent past could be used to create a compelling “redemption” arc which wasn’t explored in the film series.
He explained: “It’s a story, to me, about redemption. It’s a story, to me, about forgiveness. And it’s a story, to me, about learning to love yourself through the eyes of others, and it’s a beautiful experience.”
However, Rathbone also argued that viewers wouldn’t need to see every part of Jasper’s history on screen, as some aspects could be left to the “imagination.”
He added: “We don’t have to see everything on screen … I think we have to allow ourselves to have imagination, allow ourselves to see that a character can have a past that maybe we don’t know verbatim, or that there is a possibility of redemption.”
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