Screenwriter Teases PG-13, Vampire-Babyless Breaking Dawn

Beyond the recruitment of Bill Condon to direct it in two easy installments, the only thing the casual moviegoer really needs to know about The Twilight Saga: Breaking Dawn is that its source novel features some, er, significant childbirth complications by young mother Bella Swan. The franchise's fans, who've pumped the franchise into the billion-dollar monolith it is, wanted the scene -- plus the vampire sex that begets it -- preserved from the start, PG-13 be damned. Screenwriter Melissa Rosenberg would officially like to start deflating those hopes. [Mild spoilers follow.]

Rosenberg didn't offer much, but her response to a question posed by the L.A. Times about the fan outcry to preserve the vampire-baby's hemo-heavy introduction was discouraging enough:

On the fan site, on Facebook, all the comments are "It has to be R rated! You have to show the childbirth! Gore and guts and sex!" For me it's actually more interesting to not see it. You know, you can do childbirth without seeing childbirth ... it doesn't mean it's any less evocative of an experience.

But this is vampire childbirth! Followed by other immediate plot developments that require not only exposition but continuity. Isn't most of the Twihard population going to be 17 by summer 2012 anyway? If they're old enough to read it, they're probably old enough to see it, right? In any case, a meaty, physical, dramatic scene is the least Kristen Stewart deserves after nearly five years of furrow-browed bromides. Just make it happen.

· Twilight screenwriter Melissa Rosenberg talks Kristen Stewart, Bill Condon and Breaking Dawn [LAT via Vulture]