My humor tends to be a little more edgy than is appropriate for ‘Twilight,’ although I got some in there. That was fun! There’s just a tonal difference. For me, storytelling is storytelling. But, I do like writing for grown ups. – Melissa Rosenberg
I love that as a theme for women: Stop standing by! You’ve got to make stuff happen! You’ve got to create your own world because if you let other people do it, they’re going to just screw you. – Melissa Rosenberg
When I’m stuck in my writing, the world is amiss. If I’m eating a sandwich, it’s an unsettled sandwich. If I’m in the shower, it’s an incorrect shower. It’s profoundly uncomfortable. But it’s what keeps me pushing. – Melissa Rosenberg
What I really want to do is create great roles for women. And I’m not talking Nicholas Sparks romance. I think women’s roles have gotten ghettoized in these sort of places… I’m thinking women in action, comic books, or like the Tony Soprano of women. We need some complex roles. – Melissa Rosenberg
I think one of the major differences between Wonder Woman and Jessica Jones is that Wonder Woman is iconic and much better known, so you get into a lot of ridiculous expectations, like what’s her costume going to look like? Well, nobody knows who Jessica Jones is, except for fangirls and boys. – Melissa Rosenberg
Well, the medium of film is so different than a book that just by bringing it into visual storytelling is to change it up. I think in a book, in any book, you can have a reactive character. Some of the great novels of all time have had that, but in a film you can’t do that. – Melissa Rosenberg
I am involved with ‘Write Girl,’ which is such a great organization, because they go into inner city schools and work with underprivileged girls to pair them up with other writers. And it gets them learning to express themselves and become familiar with their own voice. They have a 100% success ratio getting those girls into college. – Melissa Rosenberg
You don’t know what someone’s going to walk away from a movie with, but you hope it’s something positive, but if nothing, you want them most basically to be entertained and engaged. That’s your job. But you also hope to give them something to chew on or maybe some insight into the human existence, you hope a little bit. Not to sound too lofty. – Melissa Rosenberg
With a film, you have to pare down and take stuff out and squish it all down into a 110 page script. – Melissa Rosenberg
Studios, because they are investing a great deal of money in movies, they want a guarantee that when they hire somebody that person can deliver for them. Everything is fear based, so they pigeonhole people. But I’ve written everything, from Westerns to sci-fi to dramedy, I’ve done it all. – Melissa Rosenberg
Well, I never got into the young adult headspace. With ‘Twilight,’ they are pretty adult themes, aside from maybe the first one, but even that. They’re very adult themes, actually, particularly as the characters age. I never wrote for young adults. I wrote for myself, as an audience. – Melissa Rosenberg
Well, I think one of the problems with ‘Birds of Prey’ was there were too many cooks in that kitchen. The studio, the producers, the network, all had very different visions of what that should be. They should have just let Laeta Kalogridis control that. Instead they decided to try to get their hands in the mix. – Melissa Rosenberg
I remember when I was a dancer and I had to do this performance and I was really nervous about it, and I happened at that moment to go see ‘Flashdance.’ I mean, it’s silly, but I walked out of that movie going ‘what a feeling!’ I walked out with confidence. – Melissa Rosenberg
With any sci-fi fantasy storytelling, you must have rules be very clear, otherwise you lose people, like ‘OK, they can fly; now they can’t fly.’ – Melissa Rosenberg
With ‘Twilight,’ you have these massive tomes that you have to condense. With ‘Penoza,’ we had an eight episode Dutch series that, just for the pilot alone, I condensed three episodes. So, there’s a lot of filling in and a ton of invention that has to happen to fill out eight episodes. – Melissa Rosenberg
What I want is to be the highest grossing screenwriter, or to have some other woman be the highest grossing screenwriter, instead of being number nine on the list. That’s my goal. – Melissa Rosenberg
It doesn’t matter if you’re the smartest person in the room: If you’re not someone who people want to be around, you won’t get far. Likewise for helping those in line behind you. I take seriously my role as a mentor to young female filmmakers – I make sure my time is tithed. – Melissa Rosenberg
I love Charlie, Billy Burke’s character. Writing for him is so spectacular, he’s so funny and wry and every scene he’s in he just takes. There’s a scene in ‘Eclipse’ where Bella tells him she’s a virgin, and it’s the funniest, most awkward scene I’ve ever seen on film. – Melissa Rosenberg
I find Jessica Jones a much more interesting character to write for than Wonder Woman. Wonder Woman is so noble and heroic, and I don’t find that as interesting as one who’s really damaged and flawed and has post-traumatic stress disorder. – Melissa Rosenberg
With ‘Darkly Dreaming Dexter,’ we as a group of writers had to take a rather thin novel and spread it out over the course of 12 episodes, and not only 12 episodes, but lay in story for everyone that’s going to take you through five years. – Melissa Rosenberg
In ‘Twilight,’ you’re setting up the world. You’re introducing the world, and I was also writing in a vacuum because I didn’t know who the actors were going to be. Now you’re going to ‘New Moon’ and ‘Eclipse,’ and I could write specifically to them in my mind. So it becomes a more comfortable world. – Melissa Rosenberg
So what ‘Twilight’ does is show how women/girls can drive box office and they can support a tent pole movie. They’re an extremely passionate fan base. This coincided with the 13 year old boys starting to stay home and play video games and work on their home media stuff. They’re no longer going to theaters in droves. – Melissa Rosenberg
I got so lucky on my ‘Red Widow’ cast. It was just the universe looking out for me that I got those actors. It’s a big ensemble cast, a very international cast. I don’t know how that happened. – Melissa Rosenberg
TV is the place for writers to live. This is where you have creative control and you’re constantly writing. ‘Twilight’ had almost a TV schedule to it. I was constantly working on these projects. There was not a whole lot of lull but I’ve gone onto other feature projects that’s like, ‘Okay, I’ll get back to you on notes.’ – Melissa Rosenberg
Everyone is given one gift, a reason for being, and it’s our obligation to do something with it. Obviously, it’s a challenge – but if you’re not taking the bull by the horns, I have no patience for you. You’re just taking up space. – Melissa Rosenberg
I think stories do have an ending. I think they need to have an ending eventually because that is a story: a beginning, middle and end. If you draw out the end too long, I think storytelling can get tired. – Melissa Rosenberg
