This doesn’t really come as too much of a surprise. When deals were done with the cast for Twilight, the contracts included clauses that tied the actors in for up to two sequels. However with the franchise becoming a box office behemoth, Summit, the company behind the movies, renegotiated the contracts with all the actors before New Moon started filming, to ensure everyone would stick around for a fourth film, so they could make all of Stephenie Meyer’s book into movie.
However, now they’ve decided they’d like to try and split the final novel, Breaking Dawn, in two, so they can make more money (as Warner is doing with the last Harry Potter book).
The problem is that the actors aren’t contracted for this, and so a fifth Twilight film means Summit needs to renegotiate terms with the players, most particularly Robert Pattinson, Kristen Stewart and Taylor Lautner. While everyone’s fees were pretty low when they made Twilight, the success of the movies has seen their asking price skyrocket, and so they’re bound to want millions for another movie.
THR reports that Summit is close to finalising deals with the three main players (ensuring massive paydays all round), while Peter Facinelli and Billy Burke are already locked in. However it seems that the actors who play the vampiric Cullen kids (especially Kellan Lutz and Ashley Greene) are holding out for higher salaries. That’s little surprise as while they’re minor characters in Twilight, because of the movies they’ve found they’re in demand elsewhere.
It seems it’s time for Summit to play hardball, with once source saying “We may have a situation where one of them is thrown out on the street to make a point.” This wouldn’t necessarily be an idle negotiating tactic, as they tossed Rachel LeFevre (who played vampire Victoria in Twilight and New Moon) to the curb due to money and scheduling issues, with her part taken over by Bryce Dallas Howard in the upcoming Eclipse.
Even though deals for even the minor actors are said to be 10 times what they made on Twilight, due the the huge amounts the franchise has generated at the box office, their agents still think what’s on offer is offensive, especially when they can now get leading role in movies elsewhere.
While it hasn’t been officially confirmed that Breaking Dawn will be split in two (due to the contract negotiations), it seems Summit is determined it will, and is prepared to recast some of the smaller characters to get that done. Will we end up with new Cullen kids? At the moment we’ll just have to wait and see.