USA Today Director Bill Condon knew that bringing Stephenie Meyer's young-adult novel Breaking Dawn to the big screen meant wading through some seriously intense themes not traditionally seen in a PG-13 film.
As he worked his way through the book to prep for shooting The Twilight Saga: Breaking Dawn — Part 1, which opened at midnight Thursday, he was struck by the sheer number of plot points he refers to as "delicate issues."
"I was reading it going, 'Wow, so much happens in this story,' " says Condon. "It certainly doesn't play safe. It was daunting."
Thankfully, the Oscar winner (for Gods and Monsters' screenplay) found words of inspiration for his first foray into the world of teen fiction.
"There was one very consistent idea that kept coming through," he says. "Don't water it down. There's something crazy and intense about this book, and you just have to embrace it."
Meyer's fourth and final Twilight tome has spent 163 weeks on USA TODAY's Best-Selling Books list since its 2008 release. Condon hopes the legion of "Twi-hard" fans also embraces the closing of the wildly successful film series, which has been split in two (Part 2 will be released next November).
"This was the longest book," says Condon. "I don't feel like I made two movies, I feel like I made a really long final chapter. It would have given it short shrift to cram that into one movie."
