Stop monkeying around? Twilight continues to be adored by its legions of fans, but there’s one scene from the original 2008 film that is a bit too bananas even for the screenwriter of the blockbuster vampire romance series. Watch which scene it is in the video above!
Melissa Rosenberg, the sole credited screenwriter on all five of the films based on Stephenie Meyer‘s popular books, tells Us Weekly exclusively that there is one line that she didn’t write in the first film that she wishes she could have been changed. The Summit Entertainment franchise starred Kristen Stewart as Bella Swan and Robert Pattinson as Edward Cullen.
“In the first movie, there’s something about, ‘Be my spider monkey,'” Rosenberg says to Us. (The actual line from the scene in which Edward climbs up a tree with Bella clinging to his back is: “You better hold on tight, spider monkey!”)
“I’m like, ‘Spider monkey? What the hell is ‘spider monkey’?'” the creator and showrunner of Netflix’s Jessica Jones continues with a laugh. “I think there was another thing either in [film] 1 or 2, again, ‘He’s my monkey man.’ Someone has an obsession with monkeys, and I don’t know what it is. But it ain’t me who has an obsession with monkeys! But little things like that irk you.”
Rosenberg explains that she’s not sure who added the “monkey” lines, which had been tacked on after she completed her drafts. For this reason, she wishes she had been a producer of the series and had more say over final decisions.
“It’s not as satisfying to write something and just send it off into the ether,” she says. “For myself, if I were to get involved again in features in a serious way, I would want to be involved as a producer as well.”
As for why she didn’t receive a producing credit, Rosenberg explains that she wasn’t established enough in the business at the time, as her only film credit prior to the teen series was as a cowriter of the 2006 hit Step Up. (Erik Feig produced both Step Up and Twilight, bringing Rosenberg on board for the latter not long after she finished working on the Channing Tatum dance film.)
“I wasn’t well-known — I didn’t have the clout for it,” says Rosenberg, whose biggest gig before Step Up was as a writer on the first season of The OC. “Erik Feig really gave me my break in features, so I was just happy to do what I did and be allowed to write all five of the movies. That was quite unusual that a writer be allowed to do that.”
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