Writing her own fan fiction: Twilight gets a ‘gender reversal’
Turns out Stephanie Meyer, she will be giving the vampire romance series a gender swap for the series’ 10th anniversary.
Twilight could have been one of the most successful movie franchises in recent movie/book history but author Stephanie Meyer just doesn’t seem to be over with it yet. Turns out, she will be giving the vampire romance series a gender swap for the series’ 10th anniversary.
Best-selling US author Stephenie Meyer said Tuesday that she wrote 400-plus pages of bonus content that now features a teen boy falling for a female vampire -- not the other way around as in the original.
“Now Bella is Beau and Edward is Edythe,” Meyer told ABC’s Good Morning America show.
“I wanted to do something fun for the 10th anniversary and the publisher wanted like a foreword and I thought ‘well, maybe something more interesting,’” she added.
Titled Life and Death: Twilight Reimagined, the anniversary material -- described by online retailer Amazon as “a bold and surprising reimagining” -- can be purchased alongside the first Twilight novel in a so-called flip book.
With a few exceptions, most of the characters in the anniversary take have swapped sexes, Meyer said. Even Jacob, the werewolf, is now a Julie.
Here are the name changes for the rest of characters as provided by Entertainment Weekly:
Isabella Swan = Beaufort Swan
Edward Cullen = Edythe Cullen
Jacob Black = Jules Black
Billie Black = Bonnie Black
Carlisle Cullen = Carine Cullen
Esme Cullen = Earnest Cullen
Emmett Cullen = Eleanor Cullen
Alice Cullen = Archie Cullen
Rosalie Hale = Royal Hale
Jasper Hale = Jessamine Hale
Jessica Stanley = Jeremy Stanley
Mike Newton = McKayla Newton
Angela Weber = Allen Weber
Lauren Mallory = Logan Mallory
Harry Clearwater = Holly Clearwater
Laurent = Lauren
Victoria = Victor
James = Joss
“The further you get in, the more it changes because the personalities get a little bit different,” Meyer told ABC.
“But it starts out very similar and really, it really is the same story because it’s just a love story and it doesn’t matter who’s the boy and who’s the girl, it still works out.”
Meyer said she was also inspired by comments made at book signings about Bella being a “damsel in distress.”
“It’s always bothered me a little bit because anyone surrounded by superheroes is going to be ... in distress. We don’t have the
powers,” Meyer said.
“I thought, ‘What if we switched it around a bit and see how a boy does,’ and, you know, it’s about the same.”
Still, Meyer said she didn’t think the twist was the beginning of something bigger. And although she acknowledged she has given some thought to who could play the roles on-screen, she added that she didn’t really see a film version happening.
More than 150 million copies of the four-novel Twilight series have sold worldwide while the five blockbuster movies it inspired took in more than $3.3 billion in box office receipts.
However, people are not to happy about the decision. Many are accusing Meyer of beating the cow for money until it dies. Here are some of the reactions: