My Rejected ‘Breaking Dawn — Part 1’ Screenplay

I’m getting discouraged. This is the fourth time I’ve submitted a screenplay adaptation of a “Twilight” book, and the fourth time I’ve been rejected — and not just rejected, but ignored! Totally ignored! I put my script in an envelope addressed to Twilight movies, Hollywood, California, mailed it, and heard nothing back. I’m starting to take it personally. Anyway, here’s what I submitted for the first of the two “Breaking Dawn” movies.

EDWARD: There you are! I’ve been lurking in your bedroom for hours, like some kind of creep. Where have you been?
BELLA: Getting ready for the wedding. Alice was helping me practice walking in high heels. I’ve never done it before!
EDWARD: Better she should help you practice smiling, but one thing at a time, I guess.
BELLA: I’m so glad we’re finally getting married and having sex, Edward. We’ve known each other for almost a year and a half! And I’m practically 19!
EDWARD: Are you sure you want to go through with this?
BELLA: With having sex? Absolutely.
EDWARD: I mean the wedding.
BELLA: Hey, whatever it takes to have sex.
EDWARD: It’s just … there’s something I never told you.
BELLA: Edward, I know about the vampire thing, and I’m OK with it.
EDWARD: No, there’s something else.
BELLA: You’re not one of those guys who get married and then keep playing video games all the time, are you?
EDWARD: No! Nothing like that.
BELLA: Then what is it?
EDWARD: Well, several decades ago, I went through a bit of a “Dexter” phase, where I would kill bad people and drink their blood.
BELLA: Just bad people?
EDWARD: Yes.
BELLA: And just to survive?
EDWARD: Yes.
BELLA: So your big dark secret is that you, a vampire, have a history of drinking people’s blood?
EDWARD: Well, yes. But I’m worried that after I convert you, you won’t be able to control yourself. It’s pretty hard not to slaughter humans and guzzle their sweet, sweet blood! I don’t want you to do anything you’ll feel guilty about. I want you to be able to look at yourself in the mirror a year from now.
BELLA: But a year from now I’ll be a vampire, and vampires don’t cast reflections.
EDWARD: [blank stare]
BELLA: Oh, right, I forgot. You guys are the kind of vampires that don’t have any of the characteristics of vampires.
EDWARD: It’s how we blend in!

* * * * *

Scene 2

[The wedding. A sappy acoustic guitar pop song plays on the soundtrack, drowning out whatever meaningless words the minister is saying. EDWARD and BELLA kiss. The camera swirls around them while the sappy acoustic guitar pop song continues to play. The soundtrack CD is available for purchase at Amazon.com.]

* * * * *

Scene 3

BELLA: Jacob! Thanks for coming to the reception, but you missed the wedding!
JACOB: Yeah, believe it or not, watching you get married to someone else and thus breaking my heart permanently and forever would have been difficult for me.
BELLA: Oh, Jacob. You say the cutest things! Who’s a good boy??
JACOB: I just wanted to see you one last time before Edward turns you from a cold, soulless human into a cold, soulless vampire.
BELLA: We’ve decided to wait on the vampire thing until after the honeymoon.
JACOB: What? You mean you’re going to make sexytimes with him while you’re still human?
BELLA: Yes! Jealous??
JACOB: Bella, he’ll kill you! He’ll kill you with sex! Vampires are incredibly strong, and their whiz-wangs are covered with barbed, venomous spikes!
BELLA: Oh, Jacob. You say the cutest things! Such a good boy!
EDWARD: What’s going on here?
JACOB: You’re gonna do sex to her before she converts? You monster!
EDWARD: Yes! Jealous??
BELLA: Stop it, you two! I’m so tired slash turned on by you guys fighting over me! You’re tearing me apart slash fulfilling my fantasies! Please don’t put me in the middle slash ever stop putting me in the middle!

* * * * *

Scene 4

EDWARD: Well, here we are. Our own private honeymoon island off the coast of Brazil! We’re in a good neighborhood, too. Next door is the island of Dr. Moreau, and next to that is the “Most Dangerous Game” island.
BELLA: Wow! It’s beautiful! Is there wi-fi?
EDWARD: Nope! It’ll be just the two of us for weeks and weeks!
BELLA: Is it wise for us to be the only two characters on-screen for one-fourth of the movie? Even I think that sounds boring, and I’m in love with myself and you.
EDWARD: Look, if there’s no chemistry between us by now, there’s never going to be. Besides, the teenage girls and middle-aged women in the audience came to this movie for one reason, and that’s to see us do it.
BELLA: In a tasteful, PG-13 way, though. Nothing too erotic.
EDWARD: Right. We don’t want to ruin the idea of sex with actual sex.

* * * * *

Scene 5

BELLA: Last night was amazing. I felt so much pleasure I nearly smiled.
EDWARD: Now, now. There’s no need to exaggerate. Hey, what are those bruises all over your body??
BELLA: Oh, those? Nothing. They’re nothing! I … I’m such a klutz, I ran into a doorknob.
EDWARD: No you didn’t! I did that to you!
BELLA: No, no, I … I fell down some stairs. It was my own fault.
EDWARD: I’m so sorry I hurt you, Bella.
BELLA: No, I shouldn’t have made you do it. I take full responsibility for the injuries you caused me.
EDWARD: Oh, Bella. You’re so empowered.

* * * * *

Scene 6

BELLA: Uh-oh, Edward. I think we should have used protection.
EDWARD: You mean a helmet and shin guards?
BELLA: No, the other kind. I’m pregnant.
EDWARD: What?! That’s impossible for several reasons! One, vampires are infertile. Two, it’s only been a couple weeks. Three, you can’t get pregnant on an island.
BELLA: But it’s — wait, what?
EDWARD: Sorry, the last time I took a high school health class was in 1932. Some of my information might be outdated.
BELLA: Well, I’m definitely pregnant, and the fetus is definitely growing rapidly, and you are definitely the father. If it’s a boy, we’ll name him Edward Edward Jacob Jacob Edward Cullen.
EDWARD: I’m not sure about that —
BELLA: If it’s a girl, I want to combine our mothers’ names into one dumb, embarrassing, made-up name, the way immature girls who get pregnant at 18 usually do. Let’s see, your mother was Samantha, and mine is Tania, so …
EDWARD: Satan! I love it!

* * * * *

Scene 7

JACOB: Bella, you can’t keep that baby. It will destroy you from the inside, like a 7-Eleven burrito! Edward didn’t succeed in killing you with sex, so now he’s going to kill you with a vampire baby!
BELLA: No! I’m not aborting my unholy demon fetus! Unholy demon fetuses have rights, too!
JACOB: Bella, listen to reason!
BELLA: It’s an unholy demon fetus, not a choice!
JACOB: OK, but my werewolf friends are going to destroy it as soon as it’s born. Vampires they can tolerate. But things that are half-vampire, half-human, and therefore probably only half as dangerous as vampires? Those are worse, for some reason.
EDWARD: What are you even doing here? Bella, why is he in my house? Why does he keep hanging around even though you constantly treat him like a dog–? Oh.
JACOB: Listen, Cedric Diggory. I love her more than you do. At least I didn’t beat her up with sex and put a devil baby in her!
EDWARD: Whatever, Sharkboy! You’re just jealous that you CAN’T do those things because you’re all smooth and plastic down there, like a Ken doll.
JACOB: You don’t know my life!

* * * * *

Scene 8

BELLA: This is it! I’m in labor! This full-term pregnancy has been the longest month of my life!
EDWARD: You’re so pale, fragile, bony, and sickly! You look like Keira Knightley, if she put on some weight.
CARLISLE: OK, everyone, calm down! I’m a doctor! Remember? I’m totally a doctor. I know what to do. Jacob, you boil some water and get some towels! Edward, you chew through Bella’s swollen gut and yank the baby out with your vampire teeth!
BELLA: The pain is unbearable! It’s excruciating!
EDWARD: Is it worse than those hundred pages in the first book where all you did was talk about how handsome I was?
BELLA: Yes! Worse than that!!
EDWARD: Wow.
CARLISLE: Congratulations, it’s a girl! She doesn’t have hooves or a tail, either, so I guess Justin Bieber is off the hook.
JACOB: Your hell-spawned abomination is an affront to nature, AND the most beautiful thing I’ve ever seen. I just “imprinted” on her, if you know what I mean. I know she’s a newborn and all, but is it OK if I ask her out?
EDWARD: This couldn’t get any weirder.
BELLA: Wait’ll she latches her vampire fangs onto my teat and starts drinking blood!
EDWARD: I stand corrected.

[ A Year of Snide Remarks was funded by a Kickstarter campaign. This week’s column was sponsored by Tried and Tru: The Latest and Greatest in Gear. Sponsor had no editorial control over the column, and the author alone is responsible for its content. ]