Newly minted LA Times film writer Rebecca Keegan is off to a good start. After her item on the seemingly rare availability of the original Tron DVD got picked up by several fan boy blogs, she checks in today with a Hero Complex Q&A with departed Twilight auteur Catherine Hardwicke.

The trick these days with any big movie is to get to the writer and-or director before the cavalcade of set visit journalists and long-lead time magazine correspondents publish as well. Keegan does this with Hardwicke, ahead of next spring’s Warner Bros. revamp of Red Riding Hood, and right off the bat has some interesting info.

Apparently, says Hardwicke, it all started with Leonardo DiCaprio.

“DiCaprio came up with the idea, “Wouldn’t it be cool to do a Gothic twist on Red Riding Hood, with the wolf being a werewolf, and just have a cool, sexy romantic thriller?” His company, Appian Way, commissioned David Leslie Johnson who wrote Orphan with them to write the screenplay.”

Keegan, who has previously written for Time and authored a book on James Cameron, also jumped back into Avatar territory with another recent item about a DVD extra.