Unlike most pop culture superstars, author Stephenie Meyer is not on Twitter. Well, she is, but she’s only tweeted twice, both times on April 16, 2009. Still, she has almost 100,000 followers eager to hear any pronouncement from the woman who gave us eternal lovers Bella Swan, Edward Cullen and the Twilight universe.
She had time to tap out the two tweets because at the time her world “had not been affected by the movies as it is now.”
Currently the five Twilight films have grossed over $2 billion and a new film sits poised to create another Meyer franchise. It’s unlikely she’ll have time to tweet anytime soon.
The Host, starring Saoirse Ronan, is a science fiction romance based on Meyer’s 2008 novel.
“When I came up with the idea I was driving between Phoenix and Salt Lake City,” she says.
“Through the desert there really is nothing for hours and hours and I didn’t have anyone to talk to, so I was entertaining myself and in the middle of that came the idea of two people, in one body, in love with the same person, and that conflict. I thought, ‘That’s not a bad idea’ and I started working on it, just in my head, until I could get to where I could start typing.”
Her love of science fiction dates back to early childhood when her father would read the stories of Frank Herbert, Orson Scott Card and others aloud to the family.“I remember he read us Dune. The first one gave me nightmares.”
The home readings, she says, were “great for a growing imagination. I also had a real affinity for that kind of reading so I don’t think it was an accident that the second world I created was a science fiction world.”
She’s quick to point out, however, that The Host is suitable for people who don’t necessarily like sci fi.
“It’s in our world and it looks the same and people are in our bodies, so it feels the same.
“You don’t have to try and immerse yourself in something that is completely alien to you.
“I think that takes away one of the hurdles for people who aren’t sure about science fiction.”
As a fan, however, she sees the tantalizing possibilities in the genre.
“Science fiction lets us experience something that we haven’t yet,” she says, “but we might.”
Twilight. Catherine Hardwicke, director. Melissa Rosenberg, script based on the novel by Stephenie Meyer. Starring: Kristen Stewart (Bella Swan), Robert Pattinson (Edward Cullen), Peter Facinelli (Carlisle Cullen), Nikki Reed (Rosalie Hale), Billy Burke (Charlie Swan), Cam Gigandet (James), Rachelle Lefevre (Victoria), Edi Gathegi (Laurent). Sarah Clarke (Renee Dwyer)
Stephenie Meyer’s Twilight, a dark fantasy about the romance between Bella Swan, a healthy, slightly klutzy, teenaged American girl, and a very goth-like vampire named Edward who appears to be 17, has become a publishing phenomenon, selling over 8 million copies worldwide. It was inevitable that the series — now a quartet of novels — would be translated to the screen. The media frenzy surrounding the film’s release has been astonishing; here, for example, film critic Richard Crouse was nearly torn apart by adolescent girls who discovered that he had actually touched the hand of Robert Pattinson, the actor playing Edward Cullen, the handsome and apparently youthful 108-year-old vampire-lover of Bella.
While Meyer’s franchise hardly matches that of JK Rowling’s Harry Potter, the success of the books is indisputable and the anticipation surrounding the film release of Twilight rivals that of the first Potter movie. Like Harry Potter and the Sorcerer’s Stone, Twilight suffers from the director’s fear of creating a free adaptation of the novel into a film. Followers of the Potter cycle will recall that it took the third version, auteur Alfonso Cuaron’s Prisoner of Azkaban, to liberate the youthful magician from the page and on to the screen, and it may take as long for Meyer’s books to achieve a truly cinematic form.
Catherine Hardwicke has made a version of Twilight that is slow, safe and dull instead of committed, passionate and brave. Loving a vampire is a metaphor for the Wagnerian Liebestod — the embrace of love and death — or of the surrealist vision of l’amour fou (or “mad love.”) When Bella falls for Edward, the world should tilt and the heart race like a jack hammer pounding out the fastest, scariest rhythm in the world. The film does end with Bella begging Edward to “turn her” into a fully sexual immortal being. But Edward refuses — sequels loom, of course — and Hardwicke seems to endorse the same reluctance to put emotion in front of logic throughout the film.
But if there’s no passion, what is Twilight about? The film slowly builds over two hours as Bella, well played by Kristen Stewart, falls for Edward and gradually realizes that he’s a vampire. Nothing noteworthy clicks in beyond that telegraphed realisation until a trio of “bad” vampires catches on to Bella’s scent and decides to make her their next feast. Edward’s coven supports him as he fights the baddies — mainly James, an over-the-top “B-movie” villain, accompanied by a femme fatale named Victoria — to save his girl.
Twilight will likely have a great weekend at box offices across North America. There are enough teenaged girls invested in the series to make that happen. With attractive leads in Kristen Stewart and Robert Pattinson, the franchise should survive this mediocre debut. One can only hope that Meyer’s second film is directed by Cuaron or someone else committed to cinema and, as Fred Astaire once sang, “love and romance.” Let’s Face the Music and Dance.
Hordes of teenage fans of the “Twilight” series of vampire books lined up in
downtown Toronto for a chance to see the stars of the forthcoming movie
adaptation.
The actors appeared at MuchMusic’s studios at 299 Queen St. W. at about 6
p.m. on Saturday, but the most fanatical fans started lining up late Friday
to camp out overnight — in the rain and cold.
In San Francisco on Monday, an estimated 3,000 showed up at a similar event.
MuchMusic organizers estimated about 2,000 showed up. They had wristbands
for 1,000.
“Twilight” hits the silver screen next Friday.
Most professional movie-watchers think it has a very good chance of being a
big hit for the following reasons:
The “Twilight” novels by Stephanie Meyer (who will have a cameo in the
flick) have been extremely popular with teens, selling more than eight
million copies
The soundtrack is already topping the U.S. charts
The online trailer has enjoyed huge success
The film comes with a built-in audience
“I think the movie is going to be an enormous hit — especially with teenage
girls. I think you’re looking at lineups around the block,” movie critic Richard Crouse told CTV Toronto. Some of those young teens went wild when he
simply told them he met the actors.
Some older teens described the “Twilight” stories as good, escapist fun.
The basic storyline of the movie is that teenaged Bella (Kristen Stewart,
most recently in “Jumpers”), who lives in a small town in Washington state,
falls for Edward (English actor Robert Pattinson), a vampire who doesn’t
want to suck her blood.
Instead, he tries to protect her from the evil vampires, led by Victoria
(Montreal actor Rachelle Lefevre).
Those three actors were on hand at MuchMusic’s studios, along with Nikki
Reed. When they appeared on stage, the screams of their fans echoed through
the neighbourhood.
Cast members of the bitingly-hot vampire flick “Twilight” say it isn’t all
about the horror – but rather the intensely personal relationship between
fans and the story that has teens rushing to the box office to snatch up
advance tickets for the film, which debuts Friday.
The silver screen romance between a young vampire Edward Cullen (played by
Robert Pattinson) and human Bella Sawn (played by Kristen Stewart) is based
on Stephanie Meyer’s wildly popular tween novel series, which has sold more
than 8-million copies.
Hysteria surrounding the film has reached a fever pitch and the buzz
generated is even being compared to what surrounded Harry Potter. The film’s
young and attractive stars, Stewart, 18, and Pattinson, 22, recently told
CTV movie critic Richard Crouse they’re not surprised fans are fixated on
the characters.
“For most girls reading the book, you feel like you are Bella. You get to
live her,” Stewart said.
Fans can still identity with the story of forbidden love despite its whimsy
elements because all the action takes place in every-day Washington State,
Pattinson suggested.
“It’s very personal because it’s set in such as small town…nothing much
happens. It’s not like it’s jumping time frames or changing locations too
much,” Pattinson said.
“People really feel like they know the characters. You can really obsess
over them,” the hunky shaggy-haired actor with an English accent said.
But no one could have prepared the couple for the thousands of screaming
fans that wait for them at public appearances or the roughly 2,000 sold-out
midnight advanced screenings across the U.S.
“Twilight” is already on course for a blockbuster opening weekend in North
America. After Friday, both Stewart and Pattinson will undoubtedly be
superstars among teenagers.
“I wasn’t aware of it while we were shooting the film which was probably
good,” Stewart said.
“No one really knew the extent of the hype that would come,” Pattinson said.
Pattison recalls how in six of seven cities, fans had a similar response
when asked why they like Edward’s character so much: “Because he is so
sexy.”
But in the last city, Pattinson recalls how one girl answered: “It’s because
of the way he loves Bella.”
Hordes of teenage fans lined up in downtown Toronto last Saturday for a
chance to see the stars of the forthcoming movie adaptation.
Fanatical youngsters started lining up late Friday and camped outside the
MuchMusic studios overnight in the rain and cold just to catch a glimpse of
the cast.
Most professional movie-watchers think it has a very good chance of being a
big hit for the following reasons:
The “Twilight” novels by Meyer (who will have a cameo in the flick) have
been extremely popular with teens.
The soundtrack is already topping the U.S. charts
The online trailer has enjoyed huge success
The film comes with a built-in audience
“I think the movie is going to be an enormous hit — especially with teenage
girls. I think you’re looking at lineups around the block,” Richard Crouse
recently told CTV Toronto. Some of those young teens went wild when he
simply told them he met the actors.
Some older teens described the “Twilight” stories as good, escapist fun.
In The Host, the hotly anticipated new film written by Twilight scribe Stephenie Meyer, a parasitic alien is injected into the body of Melanie Stryder, played by Saoirse Ronan.
Sounds grim, but remember, this is from the lady who gave us sparkly vampires and undying love, so the alien inside is kind of a lovesick creature who helps the host body find her loved ones.
That’s a lot more benign than other parasitic alien movies.
The most famous alien organism — in the movie Alien, naturally — literally burst on the screen, poking its horrible head through the chest of John Hurt in one of cinema’s most indelibly creepy moments.
To get a natural reaction from his actors, director Ridley Scott didn’t fully explain what was about to happen as they shot the scene.
“Everyone (on the crew) was wearing raincoats,” said Sigourney Weaver. “We should have been a little suspicious.”
When the alien came careening out of Hurt’s body the actors were genuinely surprised.
Blood oozed all over the set and the shock was so intense it’s alleged that Veronica Cartwright passed out and Yaphet Kotto was so freaked out he went to his room and wouldn’t talk to anyone.
Much less bloody is The Puppet Masters, which sees the earth invaded by alien “slugs” that piggyback on people’s backs, controlling their minds.
Based on the Robert A. Heinlein 1951 novel, the film starred Donald Sutherland, who also appeared in one of the genre’s classics, Invasion of the Body Snatchers.
The original movie of the story, taken from Jack Finney’s classic novel The Body Snatchers, dates from 1956 and has been declared by the Library of Congress as “culturally, historically, or esthetically significant,” but it is the Sutherland version, from 1978, that is truly chilling.
The story of alien infiltration — humans are being replaced one by one by emotionless ETs — was called “the best film of its kind ever made” by The New Yorker’s Pauline Kael and a movie that “validates the entire concept of remakes,” according to Variety.
The strangest movie parasite wasn’t an alien, but a bug that feeds on fear.
In the Tingler, these parasites attach themselves to their host’s spine and tingle when the host is frightened or scared.
In its original 1959 run it was shown with the Percepto! gimmick that gave some of the theatre seats a small electrical jolt — or tingle — during the movie’s climax.
If not for the success of Twilight, a movie called Little Ashes about superstar surrealist Salvador Dalí’s relationship with poet Federico García Lorca would likely have languished on the shelf, never to be seen in theatres.
So why is it coming to some theatres this weekend? Well, Little Ashes stars a pre-Twilight Robert Pattison as Dalí in a role decidedly different from the one that made him a star and the film’s producers are hoping to cash in on his newfound popularity.
Pattison joins the list of actors to have films come back from the dead to haunt them. Matthew McConaughey and Renee Zellweger purportedly took legal action to prevent the re-release of a skeleton from their collective closets, Texas Chainsaw Massacre: The Next Generation and if Nicole Kidman didn’t try and buy up all the copies of BMX Bandits, she should have.
In 1979, Madonna starred in the erotic thriller A Certain Sacrifice as Bruna, a Lower East Side local rooming with three love slaves who help her get revenge on a man who attacked her. Shot on a budget of $20,000 US, the film was forgotten until 1985 when it was released on VHS to coincide with the release of Like a Virgin.
Unhappy about this relic from her past popping up, she screamed obscenities at director Stephen Jon Lewicki, called the film “mediocre” and her performance “second rate.”
Lewicki declined the singer’s $10,000 buyout to keep the film off video store shelves and became a millionaire on the film’s proceeds.
Sylvester Stallone had a similar experience. As a starving actor, he appeared in a sexploitation movie called Party at Kitty and Studs. “I played Studs, who posts a sign on a bulletin board inviting people to come to a party,” he told Playboy.
“About ten people show up and they do a lot of kissing and necking, and that’s about it.”
He says he was literally a starving artist when he made the film. “I mean, I was desperate. That’s why I thought it was extraordinary when I read in one of the trade papers that I could make $100 a day. And the fact that I had to take off my clothes to do it was no big deal.”
Years later when offered the chance to buy the rights and keep the movie out of the marketplace Stallone said no and since then has developed a sense of humour about his embarrassing porn legacy.
When asked about “remake fever” in Hollywood, he said: “My real dream is that the highest-priced actor working today has the huevos to remake the classic Party at Kitty and Studs.”
This week audiences will travel into another dimension: A dimension where vampires and humans fall in love; where bloodsuckers feed on animals instead of people.
They’ll take a journey to a wondrous land where a series of books can become a movie blockbuster. They’re about to cross over into the Twilight zone.
Twilight, for the uninitiated, is Buffy’s worst nightmare. It’s the first in an insanely popular series of books about seventeen-year-old Bella Swan who moves to Forks, Washington and finds her life in danger when she falls in love with ninety-year-old vampire Edward Cullen.
The books are required reading for every teenage girl on the planet and now those undead literary characters are coming to life on the big screen in what will undoubtedly be the weekend’s number one film. Vampires, despite Buffy’s best efforts, are hot again.
Until recently vampire movies were stuck in a rut, duller than a blunt wooden stake. Too often they relied on the age-old conventions of the genre — bloody fangs, holy water and black velvet capes — while every other horror icon was given a makeover.
28 Days Later gave us fleet footed zombies and Ginger Snaps suggested an alternate werewolf back-story but vampires were stuck in gothic Bela Lugosi Land. The undead were reinvented for the series True Blood, but until recently interesting revisions of the vampire story at the movies were as rare as baked garlic at Dracula’s Diner.
That’s what makes Twilight and a new film called Let the Right One In so refreshing. The latter is a Swedish movie about Oskar, a bullied twelve-year old boy who finds love and revenge through Eli, a pretty but peculiar girl who is also a vampire.
Relocating the story from Transylvania or a giant gothic castle to a snowbound Stockholm suburb blows the cobwebs off of the traditional vampire tale. The setting is bright white, stark without a gargoyle or coffin in sight.
It’s a curious backdrop for a horror movie and the otherworldliness of the setting adds to the disquieting aspects of the story.
So if Twilight is sold out your local theatre this weekend, check out Let the Right One In, or, dig a little deeper and blow the dust off of DVD copies of Tobe Hooper’s Lifeforce or The Hunger (David Bowie and Catherine Deneuve as elegantly wasted vamps) or even Blacula for a different take on the vampire myth.
In “Abduction,” “Twilight” werewolf Taylor Lautner is Nathan, a typical teen who discovers his life isn’t what he thought it was when he finds a photo of himself on a missing person’s website. His investigation into the origin of the picture makes him a pawn in an international game of intrigue involving the CIA, an encrypted text message and the pretty girl from next door.
There is a certain percentage of the population who would pay to Lautner stand shirtless in a field, abs rippling in the wind. That would be a better movie than “Abduction.” He’s got the teen angst eye roll down to a science but other than that hands in the most wooden performance since Geppetto carved Pinocchio out of a block of oak. Beware of woodpeckers.
He’s in every scene and despite a tense fight scene here or a loud gun battle there; “Abduction” is sunk by bad acting and even worse dialogue. Even old pros like Alfred Molina and Sigourney Weaver can’t get past lines like “there’s a bomb in the oven,” one of the most hilairously bad lines this year.
“Abduction” will leave you wondering how, exactly, that bomb got into the oven and how exactly, this bomb made it into theatres.
Unlike most pop culture superstars, author Stephenie Meyer is not on Twitter. Well, she is, but she’s only tweeted twice, both times on April 16, 2009. Still, she has almost 100,000 followers eager to hear any pronouncement from the woman who gave us eternal lovers Bella Swan, Edward Cullen and the Twilight universe.
