Twilight Thursdays! Vol. 1, Issue 9

A NEW BOOK RELEASE FROM STEPHENIE MEYER!

Surprise!

I have a new book coming out. It's called The Short Second Life of Bree Tanner. Well, it's more of a novella than an actual book—my version of a short story.

Actually, this has been a surprise to me, too. The reason why it's a surprise was that I never intended to publish this story as a stand-alone book. I began this story a long time ago—beforeTwilight was even released. Back then I was just editing Eclipse, and in the thick of my vampire world. I was thinking a lot about the newborns, imagining their side of the story, and one thing led to another. I started writing from Bree's perspective about those final days, and what it was like to be a newborn.

This story was something that I worked on off and on for a while, just for fun, in between the times I was writing or editing other Twilight novels. Later, when the concept for The Twilight Saga: The Official Guide came up, I thought that might be a good place for Bree. Her story is a nice complement to Eclipse; it explains a lot of the things that Bella never knew. So I dusted it off and finished it up for placement in the Guide.

At the same time, it came in handy for the Eclipse film. Melissa (Rosenberg, the screenwriter) had a ton of questions about what exactly was going on in Seattle, how Victoria managed things, what Riley was like, etc. I let her read what I had then, and later gave the whole thing to the director, David Slade. David asked if Xavier, Bryce, and Jodelle (Riley, Victoria, and Bree) could read it as well, so all the parties involved would end up having a really strong foundation for their characters before the cameras started rolling. I was pleased that this side of the story would make it into the film and was looking forward to including it in the Guide.

(Keeping it confidential: Here is Jodelle next to the bucket of waterlogged ashes that were once the pages of her copy of the Bree manuscript.)

Then I got the news: my "short story" was nearly 200 pages long when typeset. It was too long to fit into the Guide—without ending up with a tome as heavy as the Oxford English Dictionary. My publisher approached me with the idea of releasing the Bree story on its own. One of the major benefits of this plan was that it would be out before the movie, so people would get to know Bree before they saw her in the film. That made sense to me, and we decided to go ahead with it.

There was one thing I asked for: since this story had always been an extra for me, and was meant to be released with the Guide, I wanted to be able to offer it to my fans for free. You all have bought a ton of my books, and I wanted to give you this story as a gift. My publisher was awesome and embraced this idea. We still wanted to also produce a physical book with a cool cover (see below) that you can add to your set if you like, but starting at noon on June 7th until July 5th, it will also be available online {FOR FREE} at www.breetanner.com.

One other aspect of this release is the plan to give a more important gift to people who really need it. One dollar of each book purchased in the US from the first printing will be donated to the American Red Cross for their relief efforts in Haiti and Chile and other parts of the world where people are in great need. We're going to have an option online as well, so you can choose to make a donation if you want when you read the story online. I hope you will. I think that we can really help a lot of people with this.

I really hope you all enjoy this story. I had a blast writing it. I'm glad that after all this time cooling her heels in my files, Bree finally gets her chance to shine.

Thanks for all the support,

Steph

The Short Second Life of Bree Tanner is available for pre-order from Borders for $9.44 and will be released on June 5, 2010.

MTV has done a little digging & has this Cheat Sheet all about the elusive Ms. Tanner:

An "Eclipse" Exclusive:

If you've only been watching the "Twilight" movies or read the first two books, don't be shocked that you have no idea who Bree Tanner is. In fact, don't be upset if you read "Eclipse" and still have no idea who she is. Tanner is a character introduced a startlingly short amount of time before she dies in "Eclipse" and could be considered (to everyone except Stephenie Meyer) to be a throwaway character.

A Short Life:
Tanner is only introduced 10 pages before she is killed off in Victoria's war against the Cullens and the Quileute werewolf tribe. However, of all the newborn vampires discussed in "Eclipse," Tanner was one of the few to be named and introduced to the readers. Unfortunately, it didn't take very long after she was turned into a vampire for her to meet her end ... again.

Dramatic Death Scene:
It turns out Tanner isn't the best newborn vampire among them all, and she isn't a big fan of killing innocents and drinking their blood. She tries to join forces with the Cullen clan and adapt to their "vegetarian vampire" lifestyle, but ends up being killed by Felix on the orders of Jane, a member of the Volturi guard (played by Dakota Fanning in the film), in the final battle.

Newborn Vampires:
A big part of the story in "Eclipse" surrounds the bad-girl vampire Victoria creating an army of newborn vampires in the Seattle area so she can wage war on Edward Cullen, who killed her beau James way back in "Twilight." When a vampire is first created, it is at its strongest, so Victoria went around recklessly creating vampires so she could have an extremely powerful army behind her. Tanner was just one of the fatalities.

Seattle:
The trouble with the first-person perspective of "The Twilight Saga" is that the reader can't read what is happening firsthand beyond what Bella Swan sees with her own eyes. Much like "Midnight Sun" gave (some) of the details behind what happened elsewhere in "Twilight," "The Short Second Life of Bree Tanner" will show what happened in Seattle with Victoria during "Eclipse." But since much of "Eclipse" is devoted to the characters wondering what exactly was going on in Seattle, seeing it through the eyes of a secondary character like Tanner is a smart companion piece to the book.

Unseen First Life:
Unfortunately for Tanner, the world will never know what happened to her before she became a vampire. She was introduced into "Eclipse" after she was a newborn and "The Short Second Life" will start off the same way. There is a chance of flashbacks telling about her life before becoming a vampire, but the way Meyer described the novella on her Web site made it seem as though Tanner was the narrator solely so the reader could see what went on in Seattle, not to learn her past.

In The Movies:
"Eclipse" director David Slade at least had more of a heads-up than fans and retailers did about "The Short Second Life," and he cast 14-year-old Jodelle Ferland in the role. Slade and Ferland, as well as Bryce Dallas Howard (Victoria) and Xavier Samuel (Riley), were given advance copies of the book to read so they could have a complete knowledge of what went on in Seattle for the film.

New Moon News
The New Moon DVD wasn't the only Twilight item to break records last week. The Twilight Saga: Twilight Graphic Novel didn't do too bad either. TMZ reports,

According to the publisher, "Twilight: The Graphic Novel, Volume 1" sold over 66,000 copies in its first week.

The book already broke another record for largest first printing of a graphic novel, with 350,000 copies.
The release date for Volume 2 hasn't been announced yet -- but with numbers like these, we're guessing they're working as quickly as possible to get it out there.

This makes the graphic novel's debut the largest ever in the U.S.!

The Twilight Saga: New Moon and series actors are nominated for the 2010 MTV Movie Awards in the following categories:

Best Movie: The Twilight Saga: New Moon

Best Male Performance: Taylor Lautner (for New Moon); Rob Pattinson (for New Moon & Remember Me)

Best Kiss: Rob Pattinson & Kristen Stewart (for New Moon); Dakota Fanning & Kristen Stewart (for The Runaways); Rob Pattinson & Emilie de Ravin (forRemember Me); Taylor Lautner & Taylor Swift (for Valentine’s Day)

Best Global Superstar: Kristen Stewart, Taylor Lautner, & Robert Pattinson are all nominated

Go vote! Or you can write in your submissions.

Eclipse News Clips
This week we got six new stills!

MTV talked with Jackson Rathbone (Jasper Cullen aka Jacksper) about his Eclipse excitement! Here's what he's looking forward too..

"It's been two, three years and now I get to kind of go outside and show a little bit more of what makes Jasper tick. We get to go into his back story — see where he came from, who he was before, what makes him who we see in the first film of 'Twilight,' what makes him seem like he's always in pain, why he's always in pain ... because he is."
So why, exactly, is he in so much agony? "He's almost depressed," Jackson said. "He wants to live a good life. He wants to be part of the Cullen family. He is the newest to this vegetarian vampire way of life, and he's still trying to be part of that and address his inner demons and what he used to be. It was really fun to be able to express that."
...
Some of Jackson's favorite scenes to film were the ones that explore Jasper's origins. "Whenever we got to go into Jasper's back story," he said, "I got to don the Civil War regalia and ride a horse. It had been years since I'd been on a horse, so it was fun. I used to ride when I was in Texas."

FEARnet also had an interview with Jacksper where he highlights the Love/Lust relationship between Jasper & Maria:

"In addition to his Civil War days, expect to see Jasper’s training put to good use inEclipse’s present, as he trains his fellow Cullens for battle. But fun as those scenes were, Rathbone tells us he had a particularly strange time throwing punches at certain cast-mates…

FEARnet: In The Twilight Saga: Eclipse, you get to work with Catalina Sandino Moreno…

Ah man, Catalina. That was amazing, working with her. I was a huge fan of Maria, Full of Grace and she was lovely to work with.

We’ll finally get to learn a little bit more about your character, Jasper Hale. What we can expect to see from Jasper’s flashbacks and your scenes with Catalina?

Jasper’s back story is that he was turned into a vampire during the Civil War era, so I got to don the Civil War regalia and ride a horse again — I haven’t been on a horse in like two years, so that was really fun. Basically, that’s how I meet Maria, who’s played by Catalina. Maria turns Jasper in order to make him the leader, or trainer, of the army that she needs in the South. Vampire armies are very prevalent in the South in those days. You’ll get to see a lot of deadly training vampire scenes, and a little bit of the love-lust relationship between Jasper and Maria and how it doesn’t really pan out.

Sounds like the type of turning scene your fans are going to love seeing. From the books and films, we know that vampires are turned with bites in various places; we’ve seen Carlisle, for example, bite Esme rather romantically on the neck to change her. So… can you tell us where exactly Maria bites Jasper?

Where does she bite him? Well, I don’t want to give everything away. I’ve got to keep some little secrets. [Laughs] I think people are going to be pretty happy about it.

Fair enough! Were there any particularly funny moments you had while filming Eclipse?

You know, whenever you get into these fight scenes it gets a little funny because you’re going after each other, and we’ve all been such good friends for three years now, so throwing a punch at your friend is kind of weird. Jasper has to train the Cullen family, so it was weird… I didn’t want to throw punches at Nikki Reed or Ashley [Greene]! It just didn’t feel right to me to hit a girl. I was raised very Southern, and that’s very wrong where I come from."

Eclipse ice cream?! In Italy?! Twilight Lexicon has the scoop:

"So here’s what we found out via Twilight Italia, who broke the story, that seems to have been Tweeted round the world. With a little help from Google Translation we’ve discovered that there’s this contest being held by Sanson to send two winners of the which ice cream is better (chocolate paw print=Jacob, lemon with strawberry inside=Edward) to the officialTwilight Tour in Portland that is run by Creation Entertainment. They also, we think, win a replica Bella’s ring.( We admit that we are a little sketchy on that part.)

Anyway, we asked Summit about it and we learned that there was a deal for this item and we might see some other Eclipse products pop up in non-USA markets, so keep your eyes open!"

Breaking Dawn Buzz

The list of potential Breaking Dawn directors just keeps growing. The LA Times reports,

"Add this name to the list of high-end auteurs who are being considered for the director's chair on "Breaking Dawn": Stephen Daldry.
Yep, that Stephen Daldry, the man who directed such Oscar fare as "Billy Elliot," "The Reader" and "The Hours."

Daldry joins a list that includes Sofia Coppola, Bill Condon and Gus Van Sant, all of whom have been approached about taking on the fourth film in the "Twilight" franchise. Like those three, there are not yet indications Daldry would actually take the gig, but the fact that Summit Entertainment, the studio behind the films, has reached out to him suggests where its intentions lie for the fourth film.
By this point nothing should surprise us about the names Summit is considering. (Well, James Cameron would surprise us. But he's pretty much the only one.) The fourth book contains more complicated material as the story opens up (warning: spoiler alert), with part of the novel written from werewolf Jacob's perspective and Kristen Stewart's Bella Swan carrying a child.

Having already gone indie with Catherine Hardwicke, polished/commercial with Chris Weitz and genre auteur with David Slade for the franchise's first three movies, Summit clearly wants a high-end prestige filmmaker to handle the fourth picture.

Still, even by those standards, Daldry stands out. He's been nominated for three Oscars, more than any of the other directors on the short list. In fact, Daldry is the rare filmmaker who's been nominated for a best directing Oscar for every feature he's made.

Those credentials make taking on a global teen phenomenon seem unlikely, though there are reasons to think it could work."

Can you imagine if they snagged Daldry? He's simply one of the most amazing and accomplished directors of our time. Do you think he'd take on the film? I mean, who can really handle Breaking Dawn and do it well? The book itself broke the fandom apart into a new "Team Trilogy". Do you think Daldry could do it right? Let us know in the comments below!

It looks like Kristen, however, is Team Gus Van Sant.