For those of you who were “too cool” to attend any of the films in the multi-billion dollar franchise which is The Twilight Saga, you aren’t missing much. But, with that in mind, it makes complete sense that creator Stephanie Meyer would be ready and willing to capitalize on another franchise, now that her vampire/werewolf/emo chick love triangle is coming to an end.

Enter The Host, which hit bookshelves back in 2008. Toted as being “Science fiction for people who don’t like science fiction”, the book is said to be a bit of a departure from Meyer’s Twilight universe. Here’s the synopsis.

The Host is a riveting story about the survival of love and the human spirit in a time of war. Our world has been invaded by an unseen enemy. Humans become hosts for these invaders, their minds taken over while their bodies remain intact. Most of humanity has succumbed.

Set to hit theaters on March 29th of next year, the film has plans to take star Saoirse Ronan (Hanna) and possibly construct her into the next Kristen Stewart with this upcoming adaptation. Take a look at the first trailer after the jump, and be prepared to be dazzled by a series of photoshopped images of creepy eyes.

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Saoirse Ronan is not only starring in Twilight author Stephanie Meyer’s The Host, but is now attached to headline yet another Snow White centric flick called The Order of the Seven. The film will have a completely new spin on the old story.

It will follow a centuries old and once revered Order of Warriors from around the world, who are now a jaded group of outlaws, as they reclaim their destiny after the reemergence of an ancient evil empress. Ronan will play Olivia Sinclair, a British ex-pat of 19th Century Hong Kong who guides the warriors back to their noble roots. The film will be lined with stars from China, Russia and Japan.

Ronan has been making a name for herself over the past few years as she has taken on larger and larger roles, which have included Peter Jackson’s The Lovely Bones, the Oscar-winning Atonement and not to mention the action packed Hanna. This will be her first leading role.

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We can’t really put into words our feelings about Twilight and it’s various big screen treatments. Suffice it to say there’s another movie coming soon called The Twilight Saga: Breaking Dawn Part 1 and we’ve got a preview for it to show you.

Not that you need any extra encouragement to see the upcoming movie. If you’re a fan of the series you’re going to go, no matter what. If you hate all-things Twilight well, then, you probably won’t — unless you get dragged there by some weepy female. Hey, we’ve all been there, there’s no shame in it.

Sometimes you gotta do things you don’t want to do to make other people happy. Or, to get some, shall we say, action.

Whatever you’re motivations, or lack thereof, look for The Twilight Saga: Breaking Dawn Part One to hit theaters on November 18. In the meantime, check out the preview after the break.

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I have mixed feelings about this news coming out of Cannes today. At least I’m happy to see this guy getting more work as I’m a fan and had the pleasure of working with him once long ago.

It seems Truman Show writer and Gattica director Andrew Nicol is taking on directing duties for the big screen adaptation of the Stephanie Meyer book The Host. The project, which is being shopped at Cannes by Inferno Entertainment and producers Nick Wechsler and Steve Schwartz and Paula Mae Schwartz, will star Saoirse Ronan.

Here’s some more info on the film:

Ronan will play Melanie Stryder, one of the last humans battling an alien species called Souls. These parasites invade human bodies, fuse to each person’s consciousness and systematically erase their personalities.

The story follows Melanie as she is captured by the aliens and implanted by a Soul called Wanderer. Wanderer wants Melanie to give up the remaining humans, but instead the alien finds Melanie to be unique in her unwillingness to surrender her consciousness.

Wanderer is so overwhelmed by Melanie’s memories and feelings that she is driven to reconnect with Melanie’s old life, which includes falling for Melanie’s boyfriend. The result is a complex, romantic and emotional human/alien love triangle.

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Welcome to this week’s On the Radar where we delve into all corners of the entertainment, tech and geek Internets for news, views and whatnot that may have escaped our regular coverage this week. Let is know if we missed something interesting. Otherwise, on to the links!

• Ever wonder which reality TV stars would be the perfect team for the zombie apocalypse? Here’s the top 6.

• Craig Ferguson’s Doctor Who special had to cut an epic music number. Thanks to Ferguson’s Twitter, that music number is no longer lost.

• Against everyone’s better judgment, a film about Space Nazis titled Iron Sky is actually going into production.

• Need help teaching a youngling the alphabet? How about by way of Star Wars characters?

• Voldemort may get taken down by Harry Potter in the next film, but he’s hitting Manhattan in the meantime.

• Microsoft has decided to give Xbox 360 users FREE Microsoft Points….for a price.

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Now that the trailer has hit for the third Twilight installment, Eclipse, Summit has begun the hunt for the lucky soul to sit in the director’s chair for the final dose of Twilight: Breaking Dawn. According to Entertainment Weekly, they’re aiming high and want no less than someone with an Oscar nomination or two under their belt.

Summit has reportedly approached Sofia Coppola, Gus Van Sant, and Bill Condon with offers.   It’s still very hush hush, however, as only Van Sant’s representatives would confirm first contact. Summit declined to comment.   Screenwriter Melissa Rosenberg’s script outline is due next week, so it’s unlikely any serious offers can be made until  everyone knows how the iffy bits are going to be handled.

Stephanie Meyer will also have to weigh in, as she has approval over every hire Summit makes.  Any Twilighters know whether she prefers Marie Antoinette to Dreamgirls? What does she think of Good Will Hunting?

Of course, it may end up being none of these fine people. When Chris Weitz dropped out of the series after helming New Moon, the list of possible Eclipse directors was long and interesting:  Drew Barrymore, Juan Antonio Bayona, Paul Weitz, and James Mangold were all name dropped before David Slade climbed on board.

With that in mind, do you think we can convince David Cronenberg consider the gig?  If so, Breaking Dawn would officially be the first Twilight film I’d be camped out to see.

What can we say, there’s a brand new preview of the trailer for the upcoming third chapter in The Twilight saga, which is better known as Eclipse, and we’ve got it for you today. Courtesy of the fine folks at Extra, the teaser doesn’t really give us all that much to go on because, basically, it’s just a preview.

Still, what it does do is provide yet another reason to show shots of the cast of the film, which includes all your favorites such as Robert Pattinson, Kristen Stewart and Taylor Lautner, and have them walking, standing, talking and otherwise looking as good as possible. The preview also clues us in just a bit on some plot points of the film, which, if you’ve read the book, you probably already know by heart.

Still, seeing even this short preview reminds us in some way why these movies are just so damn popular. They feature attractive people going through emotional times and doing it with a certain sense of urgency.

While I’m not much of a fan of these books or movies, I can certainly understand the appeal to their target audience. People love them and these characters and in the end, that’s all that really matters.

Check out the new teaser after the jump. The full trailer will debut on Friday at 9AM ET. The Twilight Saga: Eclipse hits theaters June 30th.

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I know what you’re thinking. You can’t imagine a time before the Twilight movies existed and you can’t believe that now that they do exist, the ride may come to an end sometime in the future. Well, don’t worry too much about the end just yet because Summit Entertainment and the franchise’s producers have got your back and will do their best to prolong the end as long as inhumanly possible.

How, you may ask? Well, by turning the last film in the Twilight series, Breaking Dawn, into two movies. So, you’ll get double the pleasure and double the fun, presumably, and the studio and producers can get double your money. Seems fair, right? After all, they are doing it for the last Harry Potter film, doesn’t Twilight deserve the same treatment?  Of course it does.

But wait, there’s more. Those two movies may also be in 3D which will, of course, make them even better because as we know, any movie in 3D is automatically at least a full dimension better than any movie in 2D. So, to recap, the last Twilight book will actually be two films so fans will get at least two more chances to watch their favorite characters on the big screen and the films may also be in 3D for that added visual punch.

And you thought Hollywood didn’t care.

This week on The Flickcast, Chris and Matt are again joined by Elisabeth Rappe and, as usual, launch into discussions of various topics including Twilight’s vampire baby, that Breaking Dawn may be unfilmable, Conan O’Brian, Jay Leno and NBC and the Spider-Man reboot. They also discuss Stuart Townsend leaving Thor, the casting of Blake Lively in Green Lantern, who should play Sinestro in Green Lantern and a whole lot more.

The trio also made some new picks this week including Matt’s pick of Aziz Ansari’s standup video Intimate Moments for a Sensual Evening, Elisabeth’s pick of Lesbian Vampire Killers and Chris’ pick of Katherine Bigelow’s The Hurt Locker, which is new on Blu-ray this week and also one of Chris’ top ten films of 2009.

As always, if you have comments, questions, critiques or offers of sponsorship, feel free to hit us up in the comments, on Twitter and at Facebook, MySpace or via email.

While Twilight: New Moon has been sweeping the nation since it’s release last year, and Eclipse already in the can, producers of the franchise realize that they need to look forward to the final book in the series, Breaking Dawn. Unfortunately, nobody seemed to think the films would get this far, as producers are now stumped on how to film some of the outrageous moments of the final book.

For those like myself who have no intention on reading the books, [SPOILERS BE HERE] in the final book Bella becomes pregnant with Edward’s baby, and while pregnant, the baby grows at an accelerated rate. The baby begins to claw it’s way out of the womb, before Edward uses his teeth to perform a makeshift cesarean. They later discover that the baby has psychic powers and werewolf Jacob falls in love with it.

It looks like producers over at Summit finally read Breaking Dawn for the first time and realized that they may be screwed. From the L.A. Times:

Wyck Godfrey, the producer of all the films in the “Twilight” saga, admits that the creative team still doesn’t know how they’ll handle the character in the “Breaking Dawn” movie, but said that the plan is absolutely for the production to go forward — as either one or two installments — with an eye toward beginning to shoot in Vancouver this fall. All three stars are signed for “Breaking Dawn,” he said, meaning that Stewart and Pattinson will be dealing with the joys and woes of interspecies parenting and newly minted heartthrob Taylor Lautner will return as often-shirtless shape-shifter Jacob Black.

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With a new moon arriving this past Monday, and a film called New Moon arriving in theaters this Friday, it was only expected that the vengeful internet gods would take this week as time to spoof the film based on Stephanie Meyer’s book.

Saturday Night Live was one of the most recent groups to jump on spoofing the highly popular book/movie series, and now it looks like our pals at College Humor have done the same. What’s one thing that can trump a vampire and a werewolf? Three wolves…and a moon.

For those unaware, there is a phenomenon moving across the country, a phenomenon in which people everywhere think that wearing a shirt with three wolves howling at the moon makes them “cool” or “badass”. This trailer proves that they may have been right all along.

Check out the video after the jump, starring the lovely Aubrey Plaze from NBC’s Parks and Recreation. Enjoy.

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In a crazy, mixed-up world where something like New Moon Underwear and New Moon Chocolate has enough of a demand for mass production, it was only inevitable that the ticket pre-sales for the movie itself, The Twilight Saga: New Moon, would be astronomical. According to Fandango, that is, indeed, the case.

Though the film doesn’t open until November 20th (This Friday), tickets are already on sale. As of Saturday, November 14th at 8:00PM, the film had already broken the record for most pre-sales of the last 10 years. Here’s the list of the top five, for comparison.

Fandango’s Top 5 Advance Ticket-Sellers:

1. New Moon (2009)
2. Star Wars: Episode III – Revenge of the Sith (2005)
3. Harry Potter and the Half-Blood Prince (2009)
4. The Dark Knight (2008)
5. Twilight (2008)

Though this is no surprise to the ticket-selling empire, as they already have a New Moon fan site embedded in their network, this is still a bit of a shock to those who have yet to jump onto the “Twilight” bandwagon. At the rate that advanced ticket sales went, it’s quite likely that New Moon will break $100M this weekend, and could very well be on the way to taking on, and perhaps surpassing, such other heavy-hitters as Spider-Man 3 and The Dark Knight.