Casting and Introductions

Brenda Song

I suppose I should introduce myself. My name is Amber. *Waves* Hi, Amber! As you can guess by the title of this blog. I am a big twi-hard.

twi-hard (twahy-hahrd)
- noun
An overobsessive fan of the series Twilight by Stephenie Meyer, usually a teenage girl: Oh my god, that girl is such a twi-hard.

At least, that's my definition. :)

Anyway, on to introducing myself briefly. Like I said, my name is Amber. I'm 19 (20 this September!) and I live in South Dakota. I'm going to be attending college in the fall for two degrees: one in English and one in Environmental Biology. I'm currently writing a book called Manifest, but I'm taking my sweet with it. As for my Twilight obsession, I started reading it back in '07 and I'v become ADDICTED.

But I'm sure you gals and guys are here to read an awesome rant. I'm starting off with one I've written before, but I'm going to continue whining about it. :P


Vanessa Hudgens

There's a rumor that's been going around saying that Disney stars -- specifically Vanessa Hudgens and Brenda Song -- are up for the role of Leah. People are freaking. out. Message boards and websites are in a frenzy about this 'information'. How seriously am I taking this? Honestly, I think it's crap, and here's why:

I like Brenda Song. I think she's cute and adorable. I especially enjoy it when she hosts Disney's 'Pass the Plate'. Yes, I still watch Disney. :P Do I think she'd make a good Leah? Well, no. Her acting is strictly Disney. I don't foresee her breaking out into this complex drama that breaks our hearts any time soon. And seriously, her as Leah? Ladies and gents, the gal is CLEARLY asian. She does not look one ounce Native American. That wipes her off of the map for this part immediately.

How about Vanessa? She's cute. (In a pretty way, not personality-wise. Sorry, VH fans. I'm not fond of her.) She's darker skinned, so that means she's in the running automatically, right? Maybe if Summit/Chris/blah blah blah either doesn't care about authenticity or is just ignorant.

But, aha, they DO care. According to Lana Veenker, a separate company was hired to exclusively cast Native Americans. They are trying to be authentic. And don't just shrug off what Lana says as nonsense. She is actually involved in the casting process, so what she says is pretty true.

On to other factors.

Have you noticed that Summit's being stingy? If I recall the numbers correctly, Twilight was on a budget of $35mil. New Moon's budget is $50mil. That only adds $15mil more to their funds. Now, seriously, are they going to want to HIRE Vanessa/Brenda? No, because those girls have bigger pricetags on their heads. If they hire relatively unknown actors (But still professionals, so don't think that necessarily means you, buddies. It's a hard world out there.), then that means they don't have to pay them as much, which means they get more money in return. Summit is being clear in what it's priorities are: cash and more cash.

And you know what? They can AFFORD to do that! TwilightSeriesTheories.com reported a while back that 'since Black Friday, Amazon.com has sold enough copies of Breaking Dawn that, if stacked end to end, it would reach the summit of Mount Everest 8 TIMES!'. EIGHT times to the top of Mt. Everest. That is NOT a small fandom. A lot of smaller productions feel the need to hire bigger named actors to draw in audiences. However, the fans' love for the books alone generated $70.6mil in its debut weekend, according to BittenandBound.com. That's twice what was put into the film in the first place. And no big names were even IN the cast!

But people are still panicked.

I freaked out once. Remember when Taylor's part was basically up for grabs? Taylor Lautner will never be my Jacob Black, but the kid is dedicated to his role. He was working for it. And then there was that Michael Copon guy who just came in and assumed he was going to get the part. (Before anybody says anything, I was WILLING to give him a chance. C'mon, the guy's kind of cute. But if you don't know why I dislike him, go check out his J-14 interview. You'll see.) A lot of Twilight fans freaked out over that, but according to EW (Who is supposed to be REALLY reliable.), Copon's rep never even got a call for the part. So, essentially, he was never even up for the role. It's quite possible that the same thing is going on with the Disney starlettes. That's actually what Yahoo!News is saying. Now, I'm not sure how reliable Yahoo is in its news, but I'm rather inclined to believe that those two girls aren't even up for the parts. It's logical to me.

In short, DON'T FREAK OUT. Summit and Chris will do what's best for New Moon in the end.

Tchau,
Amber