Usually it’s taboo to call a baby creepy, but Sofia Coppola (Priscilla, The Bling Ring) went there when she discussed how she turned down the opportunity to direct a Twilight film”.

In an interview with Rolling Stone, Coppola described how she was approached about directing Twilight: Breaking Dawn – Part 1 and 2, but couldn’t get on board with the plot involving a werewolf “imprinting” on baby Renesmee. In the franchise, Jacob, the teen werewolf, couldn’t imprint on Bella, a human his own age, so he went after someone a bit younger, namely her newborn.
For those lost in translation, imprinting is supposed to be fate-driven, like finding one’s soulmate. Unfortunately, it also bears a striking resemblance to child grooming. And even though Coppola is known for romances that break traditions, this one went outside her comfort zone.

She recounted, ”We had one meeting, and it never went anywhere,” Coppola 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.” Still, it’s intriguing to visualize what Coppola’s film could have looked like if she had gotten past the whole, older man crushing on a baby romance angle. Would there have been a melancholy 1980s soundtrack? More long pauses than the ample ones Kristen Stewart’s Bella provided?

Sadly one can only use their imagination, while re-watching Bill Condon’s versions and think what could have been.