Twilight Screenwriter Mellisa Rosenberg, who has already completed the script for New Moon, says that the scripts so far have taken notes from Brokeback Mountain and Romeo and Juliet:

MTV: I would think the greatest challenge for you was to portray a romance that “Twilight” fans consider to be so powerful and epic. Where did you go for inspiration?

Rosenberg: Well, “Romeo and Juliet” is an obvious comparison. I discovered [after reading "Twilight" that Meyer] uses “Romeo and Juliet” quite heavily in “New Moon.” And this is going to sound a little crazy, but “Brokeback Mountain” was a great model of forbidden love.

MTV: So when it came time to portray the Edward/Bella romance, you thought about Heath and Jake?

Rosenberg: Well, “Brokeback Mountain” for two reasons: One, the short story [that was the basis] for “Brokeback Mountain” is beautiful, pure, very small — 20 or 40 pages — and the writers of “Brokeback Mountain” [the movie] would take one sentence, one four-word sentence, and it would become a story line. It would become a character. It was such a beautiful adaptation. I learned a great deal from reading that book and then watching the movie. It taught me a lot about adapting. But I had the opposite challenge with “Twilight” than they had with “Brokeback” — with “Brokeback,” they had to let it grow and breathe. I had to condense a great deal. For instance, with the James character and the evil vampires — taking what is really only the last 25 percent of the [novel] and bringing it forward. There were a couple moments like that where you go, “OK, wait a minute, [Meyer] is just suggesting this. But let’s let it play.”

MTV: But as far as the Edward/Bella romance is concerned, you see similarities to the “Brokeback” relationship?

Rosenberg: Yeah, it was just so poignant, and the forbidden-love element, that you have this deep yearning and passion and yet you have to keep it secret — to want to be with each other and to have to stay away on some level. So “Brokeback,” for me, was a great model for how to structure the romance in the story.

Screenwriter Melissa Rosenberg Was Inspired By ‘Brokeback Mountain’