Twilight's original script had Bella killing vampires with a shotgun

Photo credit: Lionsgate
Photo credit: Lionsgate
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The Twilight Saga has been on the receiving end of a lot of backlash over the years, from vampire enthusiasts criticising its sparkly bloodsuckers and others slamming the "age gap" between Kristen Stewart's teenage human Bella Swan and Robert Pattinson's century-old Edward Cullen.

Another bugbear of a certain few seemed to be Bella's perceived passiveness as a protagonist, and that things just... happen to her.

It turns out, though, that she was a bit more of a go-getter in the first film's original script – and would often carry around a shotgun just in case any of Dracula's descendants rubbed her up the wrong way.

Photo credit: Imprint Entertainment
Photo credit: Imprint Entertainment

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On a recent episode of The Big Hit Show podcast, journalist Alex Pappademas read aloud an excerpt from screenwriter Mark Lord's initial screenplay for the 2008 adaptation, long before writer Melissa Rosenberg got her hands on it, and detailed a scene that sees villainous vamp Laurent (a character played by Edi Gathegi in the film) straight-up kill Edward's adopted father Carlisle (Peter Facinelli).

"They wanted to take the concept [of Romeo and Juliet with vampires] and build in a structure that was far more like a cinematic structure," Lord explained, noting how far away the script was to Stephenie Meyer's angsty love-centric source material.

"They wanted to just put in some more action to advance it more and give something more for the male audience. They thought they were going to lose the male audience with too much of a romance," he continued.

Photo credit: Summit Entertainment,
Photo credit: Summit Entertainment,

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"I wanted [her to be] a little bit stronger as a female character as opposed to just mooning over this guy, if I recall. … We didn't want like a helpless turtle-on-its-back character. Do you want her to do nothing? I want that girl to shoot some vampires. I want her to blow some shit away."

The pair went on to discuss how the wild write-up also included jet ski sequences and a high-octane FBI chase. Sounds like it really would've been quite something, huh? But perhaps not the right way to honour Meyer's novels, love them or not.

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