'New Moon's' Chris Weitz: Grilled

It also taught me that you must adapt a beloved book faithfully.

New Line was very hands-on for "Compass" ...
It was a terrible experience because I was able to shoot what I wanted to -- and then the cut of the movie was taken away from me and any reference to religion or religious ideas was removed. And the darkness and threat at the end of the story -- anything that made it not a happy, popcorn-type movie -- was removed. The voice of the key character was redone, all of this against my will.

And the fact of the matter is the people that the studio was afraid were going to raise up arms against the movie did it anyway.

I told them the best thing to do is to do an honest version of the story because at least then you know what you’re referring to. It’s like Mark Twain said, “It’s better not to lie because then you don’t have to remember what you said.” If you’re honest with the book, then you really can’t go wrong.

When you compromise so much, the material loses what made it distinctive in the first place.
Yeah, I’m guilty -- my original sin on that project was to agree to water anything down at all. I was careful not to offend anyone’s sensibilities while at the same time including the religious ideas and the intellectual ideas that are in the book, and wrote what Phil Pullman and I thought was a pretty great representation of his book.

From that point on, as soon as the shooting stopped and the first cut of the movie was presented, I was just hammered and my editor was fired and another editor brought on and gradually power was taken from me.

So, in terms of what I learned for "New Moon" is if you go into this situation, you should be straight forward about what you’re going to do.

Do you all that make you stronger?
I think for a long time it wasn’t true and I lost a lot of sleep, literally. I was really upset for a very long time. And making "New Moon" has sort of healed me of that because I realized, "Oh yeah, you can actually work with people collaboratively at a studio and all have the same intention."

I’m very lucky. If I didn’t know Eric, I might not have been the first person that they thought of. I probably would have been on a list of people. And, y’know, from really sort of possibly being blamed for destroying an imminent franchise, “The Golden Compass,” to hopefully maintaining, or maybe even strengthening, this franchise.

It feels like a really good recovery.

So, what’s next for you?
I rarely ever have my next thing, and I’m rarely sort of juggling different possiblilities. For me, it’s like going out with two or three girls at once and, like, telling them all that you love them.

I’m gonna make a movie about a Mexican gardner. It’s basically “The Bicycle Thieves” set in Los Angeles, and I’m going to make it with Summit, if it all works out, cause this has been a very pleasant experience. It’s a drama, there’s no CGI, it’s on a smaller scale, but I think it’s a great story.

MORE "NEW MOON":
6(66) Reasons "Twilight" Is Doomed
'New Moon' Frenzy -- From Red Carpet to After-Party
'New Moon' World Premiere (slideshow)
'Twilight' Town Tempts Copyright --but Summit Doesn't Bite

1 | 2