Film director Sofia Coppola has spoken about why she decided not to work on The Twilight Saga and The Little Mermaid.
The 52-year-old is known for directing films such as The Virgin Suicides starring Kirsten Dunst and Lost In Translation with Bill Murray.
When she was approached to work on the final films for Twilight Breaking Dawn – Part 1 and Part 2, Coppola chose not to participate after one meeting as she felt the storyline was “too weird”.
In an interview with Rolling Stone, she said: “I thought the whole imprinting-werewolf thing was weird. The baby. Too weird! But part of the earlier ‘Twilight’ could be done in an interesting way. I thought it’d be fun to do a teen-vampire romance, but the last one gets really far out.”
In 2014, the director developed a live-action version of The Little Mermaid with Universal Pictures and Working Title, a completely different interpretation from Disney’s 2023 film featuring Halle Bailey.
However, it did not progress after a studio executive asked how the fairytale would appeal to older men.
“Yes, there was [a breaking point]. I was in a boardroom and some development guy said, ‘What’s gonna get the 35-year-old man in the audience?’ And I just didn’t know what to say,” she said.
Coppola added: “I just was not in my element. I feel like I was naive, and then I felt a lot like the character in the story, trying to do something out of my element, and it was a funny parallel of the story for me.”
Her next film Priscilla, is a biographical drama written based on the 1985 memoir Elvis and Me by Priscilla Presley, who serves as an executive producer.
Cailee Spaeny and Jacob Elordi portray Priscilla and Elvis.
Priscilla is released in UK cinemas on 1 January 2024.