Twilight New Moon: The Cast Interviews

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Did you sense it – the euphoria of a billion tweens that clogged the tubes of the intrawebs Monday night?  As Twitter ground to a halt during the film’s west coast red carpet premiere, it became abundantly clear: “New Moon” is going to be big this weekend. Some are talking $80 million big. Yes, we’re aware.

In fact, we were aware of all this before the Monday hoopla. Last Thursday, Lev’s latest “Twilight” breakdown hit stands in the form of TIME Magazine. Check out his “Twilight in America” consideration here. Tomorrow, I’ll be posting my thoughts – as someone who has NOT read every word of the “Twilight” saga – after seeing the film tonight.

But today, since the mayhem has really kicked into a high squeal, we’re rolling out our interviews with the entire cast. Yep, we got your Kristen Stewart. Your Robert Pattinson. We’ve got your cast photos. We’ve even got your Chris Weitz – which is personally my favorite of the bunch.

For those of you who are not aware, this is the director who gave us “About A Boy,” a whimsical little Hugh Grant comedy that wound up being a little darker and deeper than we were expecting. So he has a good track record (even “American Pie” offered some memorable fun). And the word on the street is that they threw some serious time, money and effort at this one, so maybe “New Moon” will improve on its predecessor. Here’s my favorite snippets from his talk:

How much do you pay attention to what the fans are saying on the web?

Weitz: During shooting I tried to not go onto the Internet at all if possible. I started to pay attention to fan reaction to the trailers that have been out and what kind of stuff they like, just in order to get a temperature of where things were heading. I think you end up being a politician responding to polls if you pay too much attention to the Internet. Because it’s a quick way to convince yourself that one particular person who happens to be Twittering at the moment just happens to be the authority. I try to put out fires when bizarre rumors get started. One rumor I addressed was that the Volturi scenes were supposed to be set in a bathhouse with everyone naked.

Real or not, Rob and Kristen are reported breathlessly as a couple — does that help the franchise?

Weitz: I don’t know whether it helps it or not. I just know that it will be around as long as they keep making these movies. People always want the stars of movies to fall in love with one another. There’s no calculated effort to make it seem that way on the part of Summit marketing. You really want it to be about the characters themselves. It neither helps nor hurts. It just gives fans waiting in between movies something to talk about…..

STEVE AGAIN: It seems like the guy gets it. And maybe this follow-up to the so-so original really is a home run. That said, matters not; there are plenty more chapters already on the way to a theater near you.

As for me, I’m heterosexual, have a signficant other, and was invited to a screening. So I’m going tonight, whether I want to or not.  No way around it. And if you’re anything like me, there goes your Friday night.

Back with more tomorrow. (Check out all of our “New Moon” coverage)