‘Twilight’ Director Says Studio Gave Her a ‘Mini Cupcake’ to Celebrate Film’s Success: Male Directors Get a ‘Car or a Three-Picture Deal or Whatever You Want’

“Twilight” director Catherine Hardwicke said in an interview with The Guardian that the studio gifted her a “mini cupcake” as a congratulations when the vampire romance opened to an unexpectedly huge $69 million in November 2008. It was a blunt realization that no matter how successful her directing career could be, she would not be valued in the same way as a male director.

“No, people aren’t going to hire more women directors,” she told interviewer Hanna Flint. “They’re not going to give you the next job and let you do something great. It was an earth-shattering reality right away.”

Whereas a successful male director with a franchise-launching huge opening weekend might be gifted “a car, or a three-picture deal, or to do basically whatever you want,” Hardwicke continued, she was given more or less a pat on the back.

“I walked into a room with all these gifts, and everybody was congratulating the studio, and they gave me a box,” she remembered. “I opened it up, and it was a mini cupcake.”

The director previously revealed on the “Happy Sad Confused” podcast in 2023 that the studio always underestimated how big “Twilight” could become. She was told by executives right before opening weekend that debuting to $30 million would be a relief. “Twilight” earned $7 million from midnight ticket sales alone on its way to a $35 million opening day. The film generated $69 million over its opening weekend and would go on to earn $192 million domestically and $408 million worldwide.

Hardwicke also said on the podcast that the studio questioned if Robert Pattinson had good enough looks to play the vampire Edward Cullen, explaining: “They called me and go, ‘Do you think you can make this guy look good?’ I said, ‘Yeah, I do. Did you see his cheekbones? We’re doing a makeover on the hair and everything and he’s going to start working out and he’s going to be gorgeous.’ But they didn’t believe it at first. He like walked over there with a stained shirt or something. It was Rob.”

Not only did Hardwicke get only a mini cupcake after the success of “Twilight’s” opening weekend, she also got dropped from the sequel. “Twilight: New Moon” was directed by Chris Weitz. Instead, Hardwicke moved on to the fantasy movie “Red Riding Hood” with Amanda Seyfried. But “it was much more challenging” because “it had a lower budget than we had on ‘Twilight,’ and it was all fantasy, so we couldn’t shoot any real locations and had to build all the sets. They didn’t give me much freedom.”

Head over to The Guardian’s website to read more from Hardwicke’s latest interview.