Flashback Weekend presents
TWILIGHT Chicago Convention
February 6-7-8, 2009
www.flashbackweekend.com

WYNDHAM O’HARE
6810 N. Mannheim Road
Rosemont, Illinois  60018

The TWILIGHT Lexicon team will be presenting TWILIGHT panel discussion topics including:

•  the latest "NEW MOON" movie news,
• the journey of TWILIGHT from novel to major motion picture,
• the on-going debate (battle) between Team Edward and Team Jacob. We know who Bella ended up with, but who do you think she should have ended up with? ( Alphie and Pel are on different sides )

…and more! You will also have the opportunity to meet the TWILIGHT Lexicon team at their table in the Dealers room.

Weekend events will include:

•  TWILIGHT celebrity guest autograph and meet and greet sessions
• photo-op sessions (pose for photos with TWILIGHT celebrity guests),
• celebrity guest Q & Q’s, TWILIGHT panel discussions
• A Friday evening Forks Prom Party, a Saturday evening Vampire Costume Ball and Costume contest
• A TWILIGHT merchandise dealers room, and more!

Current Twilight movie actors attending are Kellan Lutz, Ashley Greene, and Peter Facinelli (subject to change if their schedules change)

Well now there is a new twist in the Vanessa Huggens tale of did she or didn’t she audition for the part of Leah Clearwater. Apparently just like Just Jared (who got an entirely different answer direct from Vanessa’s management) Access Hollywood did a little of its own verification and according to Access Hollywood (who is standing by their source which is not the MTV source although it remains unnamed)

Vanessa has auditioned for the role of Leah Clearwater, the series’ lone female werewolf, and is “up for the role,” a source close to Summit Entertainment confirmed.

However, “no official casting announcement has been made,” the source added.

So that leaves us with:

 Just Jared directly quoting Vanessa’s management as "“I don’t know anything about the audition,” Vanessa’s rep tells JJJ. “As far as I know, it’s just a rumor."

Summit who won’t confirm or deny the rumor when asked, pretty much standard policy.

MTV stating Ashley Greene confirmed it, but doesn’t have her direct quote on that.

Access Hollywood sticking by: "Vanessa has auditioned for the role of Leah Clearwater, the series’ lone female werewolf, and is “up for the role,” a source close to Summit Entertainment confirmed."

We give up. We don’t know what to believe.

The lovely people over at Nokia/WOM have gathered questions from some of the fansites and had Stephenie answer them.  They can be found in the community section of the site.  Click on each site to see what questions were asked.  Also check out their very cool Twilight phone and Twilight downloads for your phone.  They used some of the questions that we had initially requested your input on, and then they came back and asked for some others.

Edited:  If you are having trouble seeing the interviews (the flash takes forever to load), click on what looks like the shiny ball/star next to each site’s name.

Twilight has been nominated for a Pennsylvania Young Readers Choice Award in the YA category.

 Twilight, and the other saga books, have also been named to an Australian bestseller list.

Sales Totals Round-up

NY Times

5.  The Host (hardback fiction category)
1.     The Twilight Saga (children’s series category)
3.     The Twilight Illustrated Movie Companion (paperback advice)

USA Today

1.   New Moon
3.   Eclipse
4.   Breaking Dawn
5.   Twilight
18. The Host

Wall Street Journal

1.  Eclipse
2.  Breaking Dawn
3.  New Moon
8.  Twilight
9. The Host

Publishers Weekly (does not rank YA books)

4. The Host

Check out photos of Ashley’s dress here, and then watch the video where she describes hanging out with the InStyle crew and then hitting the after parties.

So here is the story folks:

Ages ago there was an unsubstantiated rumor on the Vanessa Huggens forum that she was auditioning for Leah. we never published it because 1. rumor..duh, 2. it was before there was a confirmed director (awfully hard to audition for something that has no director), and 3. unless Melissa Rosenberg’s version of New Moon is way different than the book, Leah doesn’t show up until Eclipse (Edited: Yes Pel admits it, she forgot the party at Billy’s, however it’s minuscule and probably cutting room floor material.).

Next step, it’s kind of a slow news month so a media site runs a "Who should be Leah story?" which struck us odd for reason number 3 mentioned above, that and the fact that a leaked list of open parts made no mention of Leah or Seth (they kinda go hand-in-hand). As stories go, they were clear they were just speculating. Harmless fun in a slow news month.

This then leads to Ashley Greene being asked at this event what she thought of Vanessa and if she would make a good Leah. We’re paraphrasing here, but Ashley basically says she’s never met Vanessa, but thinks she’s great, and she could be good at the part. In the same breath, Ashley also mentions that she hasn’t read the New Moon script yet.

Flashforward to a crowded Golden Globe after party. It’s loud, noisy, everyone is excited and wants a picture with Mickey, Kate…you get the idea. Ashley Greene gets a mic under her face for 30 seconds and gets asked about Vanessa again. She repeats what she said the other day. "I think she’d be great," Greene enthused. What Ashley didn’t do though several media outlets have jumped to this conclusion is confirm that Vanessa auditioned. All Ashley did was confirm she likes Vanessa’s talent. It’s kind of like confirming you like chocolate ice cream, it doesn’t mean you’re about to buy out Ben and Jerry’s in a corporate takeover.

So Just Jared decided to do the only sensible thing..actually asked Vanessa’s management. According to Vanessa’s representative, "I don’t know anything about the audition. As far as I know, it’s just a rumor."

 The artists over at Cartoonize the World have just done Robert. Give them some feedback and let them know if there are any other Twilight stars that you’d like to see done.

Check out Taylor Lautner and Rachelle LeFevre at the Access Hollywood pre-show Golden Globes gift lounge. Kellan Lutz stopped by too.

 No, Taylor and Vanessa are not going out. Kudos to The Examiner for covering the real story which was money going to a great kids charity!

Kristen Stewart is nominated as "Talented Young Person of the Month" at the UK site of the same name.

Kristen deserves her own People page just like  Rob. Vote now to get Kristen her own page. TY to Angelica.

Speaking of UK sites, don’t forget that you can vote for Robert Pattinson on Hello every 10 minutes. At last look, Rob was more or less running neck-in-neck with Dr. Who’s David Tennant.

Solomon Tremble talks to Inspire Magazine about his Twilight experience.

Taylor Lautner continues to ride the press wave, and why not! TY to Access Hollywood for getting what we have all been dying for, a close up of the biceps!  Now…as a mere suggestion…does the word six-pack mean anything…whistles innocently for the fandom.