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USA Today: Comic Con Preview, Bill Condon Quoted

July 19, 2011 By 2 Comments

Bill condon handUSA Today has a Comic Con feature and they caught up with director Bill Condon:

“The undead men of True Blood, as well as vampire Edward Cullen and lovelorn werewolf Jacob Black in Stephenie Meyer’s Twilight book series, have become key heroes in pop culture, especially to women. Bill Condon, director of the final two Twilight movies, Breaking Dawn, Part I (out Nov. 18) and Part II (Nov. 16, 2012), sees Cullen and Black as part of a long tradition of rooting for the noble monster, dating to the original Frankenstein film in 1931.
“We’ve always had a complicated relationship toward monsters. Don’t you feel like in every Dracula movie, you’re sort of wanting him to get away with it?” Condon says, laughing.”

See more on USA Today

Via TwiFans

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The Official Illustrated Guide Debuts At Number 4 on USA Today List

April 21, 2011 By 10 Comments

USA Today is out with their edition of the top 150 books in the USA this week and here is what they had to say about the Official Illustrated Guide:

“Twilight fever: Proving that Twilight fans never say die, Stephenie Meyer returns to the top 10 this week with a new book. The Twilight Saga: The Official Illustrated Guide, a companion to the series and blockbuster movies, enters USA TODAY’s Best-Selling Books list at No. 4. In March, Meyer told USA TODAY: “My favorite part of the guide is the vampire histories,” and she writes in the guide about Edward (played by Robert Pattinson): “Unfortunately Edward isn’t based on anybody — he is all imagination and wishing. I think his allure is partially due to his old-fashioned manners. He’s a gentleman, and those are hard to come by these days.”

The USA Today list is a really unique one on several levels. Their list is very inclusive, for example they allow YA and children’s books on their list where others like The Wall Street Journal and Publishers Weekly don’t. Unlike the New York Times, they don’t divide their list into sub-categories. Everything from cookbooks, to self-help guides, to novels land on the very same list. So, you get a really interesting perspective on what America is reading overall, not just category by category. As a side note, IT’S HUGE that a novel like Water For Elephants that has been out for awhile and is now in paperback is on the list in the number 1 position BEFORE the movie comes out. This should be a good sign for opening weekend box office.

You can check out the whole list here.

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USA Today: Hollywood Brings Out a New Breed of Brawn

March 16, 2011 By 5 Comments

Eclipse trailer Jacob abd BellaUSA Today covers a variety of reasons why actors who have been around and were not really well known, to total newcomers are going to be making a splash this year as the latest predicted Hollywood heartthrobs. These types are coming in two categories and Twilight, they claim, is part of the reason:

“The ‘Twilight’ factor

The reason for the double standard?

“It’s the two archetypes you see in Twilight,” Dergarabedian suggests. In one corner is brooding vampire Edward and, in the other, burly werewolf Jacob. “It’s probably an attempt to make sure women see these films.”

Not a bad guess. Yes, the target audience of such geek-squad fare remains men 18 to 25, who can almost always be counted on to show up for at least the opening weekend of a comic-book adventure. But as the cost for special-effects and possible 3-D treatment escalates, it isn’t a bad idea to reach beyond the core crowd and add some eye candy for the ladies as well.

Consider that the first three romantic Gothic thrillers based on the hugely popular book series have collected nearly $1.8 billion total in worldwide ticket sales by targeting female ticket buyers.

Meanwhile, barely known actors Robert Pattinson, 24, and Taylor Lautner, 19, turned into overnight sensations. Besides, it is normal for the definition of a movie hunk to go in cycles, says Jeanine Basinger, head of film studies at Wesleyan University.”

See more on USA Today. So ladies which do you prefer, the brooding or the brawn?

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Stephenie Meyer: In USA Today, Why Bree

June 3, 2010 By 7 Comments

stephenieMeyerHeadshot2Q: Bree only appears in a couple pages of Eclipse. What was it about the character that made you want to explore her story further?

A: In the beginning, I wasn’t fascinated specifically by Bree — it was the newborns in general. While I was writing Eclipse, there was a lot going on behind the scenes, of course, things Bella didn’t know about. Because I was focused on Bella, I couldn’t delve too deeply into the newborns’ story, however, there was always in my mind a general idea of what they were up to. I had to think about that while I was pacing the plot: Bella is at this point, the newborns are doing this. To keep it all straight, eventually I made a calendar of the months of May and June — which is all Eclipse deals with — and wrote down on each square what was going on with Bella that day and what was happening in Seattle. So the story of the newborns was always a big part of the story of Eclipse. And it made me kind of sad that there was no way to express any of that in the book.

Bree is the only newborn mentioned by name in Eclipse, the only newborn who has contact with the Cullens (aside from being killed by them), and the only newborn who encounters the Volturi in the clearing. She lives the longest, so she is the narrator who can tell the full story. She was a natural choice to chronicle the story of the newborns. Once I started writing from her perspective, she really came alive. So much so that, as the inevitable end got closer, it was really depressing going ahead. It was harder for me to kill Bree than any other fiction character I’ve ever killed, even though I was killing her for the second time. (Before Bree, the saddest was Walter in The Host.)

See the rest in USA Today.

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USA Today: Peter Facinelli and His Two Very Different Doctors

June 3, 2010 By 2 Comments

PeterscarfUSA Today talks to Peter Facinelli about Coop from Nurse Jackie and Carlise from the Twilight Saga: how hard it is to play both during overlapping filming, who the real Peter would go to for medical care, and the changing of the scarf ritual in Eclipse.

“Dracula had his cape. But he has nothing on Peter Facinelli’s Carlisle Cullen and his scarves.

Given that members of the doctor’s makeshift family of vampires in the Twilight films are so batty for fashion that they tend to color-coordinate their ensembles with one another, it would make sense that their father figure would pay attention to his accessory choices. Even if there is always a threat of blood stains to consider.

But why exactly does the good doctor, who is more than three centuries old, have a yen for neckwear?

Says Facinelli, “I went to Catherine Hardwicke (the director of the first movie) and told her that Carlisle is a perfect gentleman and it would be interesting for him to wear scarves since they might have been in fashion at that time. Plus, after being bit on the neck, it might be a subconscious need to not have it exposed.”

So for Twilight and its sequel, New Moon, Carlisle almost always wore some sort of dangling swatch. However, the director of this summer’s Eclipse, David Slade, was not a big fan.

“He thought it was getting to be like Mickey Mouse ears,” says Facinelli of his signature apparel. But instead of just putting them in storage, the actor thought it might be better if he first made some sort of statement on-screen. “It’s a scene where I go to the werewolves for help. I take the scarf off. I wanted to show him standing before them naked and vulnerable.”

Luckily, Carlisle can always make a style statement with his Tweety Bird yellow hair”

See more on USA Today.

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USA Today: How Rob, Kristen, and Taylor Keep the Twilight Machine Rolling

May 16, 2010 By 21 Comments

robkristayusaoprahUSA Today was able to interview Robert Pattinson, Kristen Stewart, and Taylor Lautner when they were in Chicago for the Oprah show.

“Dashingly disheveled Robert Pattinson has an infectious, high-pitched laugh that would never do for his seductive vampire lover-boy, Edward Cullen.

Buff-and-polished Taylor Lautner is pocket-size compared with the looming stature of his werewolf counterpart, Jacob Black.

Casual yet cool Kristen Stewart can be a real chatterbox, unlike her moody Bella Swan, the high schooler in a romantic tug of war between these two supernatural objects of teen desire.

Lucky girl, right? “Yeah, but that’s in the movies,” Stewart says about bringing to life the modern-day Gothic heroine from the insanely popular Twilight book series (85 million copies sold so far). “I’m just the ultimate fan. If you read a story and you like it andconnect to it, it probably means you’ve inserted yourself in the story, and I get to do that on the most glorified level possible.”

See more on USA Today.

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USA Today: Stephenie Meyer’s ‘Twilight’ Series Sweeps Top Four Spots

January 14, 2010 By 44 Comments

USA Today is recognizing the amazing sales accomplishments of the Twilight Saga novels. According to USA Today (in what  is sure to raise a few eyebrows and draw some pitchforks):

“For the second year in a row, Meyer swept the top four spots. No other author — not even J. K. Rowling— has done that in the list’s 16-year history.

Meyer’s coattails pulled 16 other vampire titles onto the list of the year’s 100 most popular books.”

They further expand upon the idea that the Twilight Saga novels are responsible for the current vampire resurgence in another article as well.

“We have Stephenie Meyer’s Twilight vampires to thank, in part, for the fact that at least 17% of all book sales tracked in 2009 were related to vampires (and assorted other undead creatures, including zombies) or the paranormal (including paranormal romances). That was up from 14% in 2008, which in turn was way up from 2% in 2007.”


Read the rest on USA Today.

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USA Today Covers New Moon

November 13, 2009 By Leave a Comment

There are some gorgeous pictures. You may want to buy this issue tomorrow.  Some sample quotes:

Chris Wietz:
“Edward does make a stupid mistake by leaving Bella (in New Moon), and that allows Jacob in,” says director Chris Weitz. “You can understand why Bella starts to develop feelings for him. He’s the right man at a frightening time for her, and his devotion is touching. Even die-hard Edward people will understand.”

Taylor Lautner:
“We all get along great and we’re in this together,” says Taylor Lautner. “Rob (Pattinson) did a terrific job of bringing Edward alive. I just hope fans believe I did the same for Jacob.”

See more on USA Today.

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The Twilight Saga Breaks a USA Today Record

August 4, 2009 By 24 Comments

We’ve often said that the only way in which the Twilight novels and Harry Potter novels can be compared is the fact that they were books directed at younger audiences, written by previously unpublished women, they have tremendous sales totals, and they have fanatic fan followings. In fact we just turned down participating in an webevent that wanted a faceoff to determine which was better, because it’s not a contest. Reading, in our opinion, shouldn’t be a contest. Especially since the books are differnt genres, it would be like asking what’s better a cubist Picasso or an impressionist Monet.

USA Today just announced that the Twilight Saga broke a record previously held by Harry Potter. So you can see how the sales total comparison is an interesting one.

According to USA Today:

“The four-book Twilight series has sunk its fangs into USA TODAY’s Best-Selling Books list — with no signs of letting go. Meyer’s domination of the list for the past 12 months has smashed records that until now had belonged to J.K. Rowling.

Breaking Dawn, the fourth book in the teen-vampire romance series, entered the list at No. 1 on Aug. 2, 2008. Its sales and those of Twilight, New Moon and Eclipse, the first three books, have remained staggering.

This week, Meyer’s novels are Nos. 4, 5, 6 and 7 on USA TODAY’s list.

Rowling, overall, has sold more books than Meyer — her seven-book series about boy wizard Harry Potter has 143 million copies in print in the USA, while Meyer has sold 40 million copies of her four books. But Rowling can’t match Meyer’s control of the list.”

Check out the whole story on USA Today. It doesn’t take sides in which novels are better, but it provides an interesting insight into their respective sales patterns and histories.

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The Buying Power of Twilight

April 10, 2009 By 22 Comments

In the last week we’ve had more stories about how even though we are in economic hard times, Twilight related items are going strong.

  • Bella’s jacket that was re-released, is now on back order due to demand.
  • Hot Topic is going strong because more mainstream teens are visiting their store for Twilight merchandise. (Now if they’d just cut their clothes larger!)
  • The Twilight movie, just opened in Japan and Turkey last weekend has raised its foreign box office to a staggering $188,447,533 foreign total. That’s nearly half of the movie’s total box office income of $191,465,414.

Now this one is really staggering. USA Today doesn’t, like the New York Times or Publishers Weekly, subcategorize the books in its bestseller list. In other words everyone is lumped in together. So, you get a really good picture of overall what is selling and what isn’t.

For a little bit of trivia the NY Times used to do this to with a distinction only for ficition, non-fiction, hardback, and paperback until Harry Potter sat at the top of their list for two years and people complained and now they have at least 20 categories and subcategories. In our opinion, the fact that the NY Times list is now so subdivided is the largest reason why it took the major media so long to catch on to what Twilight was doing.

So, according to USA Today Stephenie Meyer is responsible for 16% of all books sold in the USA in the first quarter this year. Now, if you were to add in The Twilight Companion Movie Guide and the Twilight Director’s Notebook, which obviously Stephenie didn’t write, but without her work would be impossible to have, that number floats even higher.

Here’s where those books ranked:

1. New Moon by Stephenie Meyer
2. Twilight by Stephenie Meyer
3. Eclipse by Stephenie Meyer
4. Breaking Dawn by Stephenie Meyer
14. The Host by Stephenie Meyer

currently 122 The Movie companion
currently 16 The Director’s Notebook

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