ROLE OF EDWARD CAST FOR 'TWILIGHT' FILM

Actor Robert Pattinson is slated to play the role of teenage vampire Edward Cullen in the upcoming Summit Entertainment film production “Twilight.”

The movie is based on the national bestselling Forks-set book “Twilight” by author Stephenie Meyer.
The film is scheduled for national release during the 2008 Christmas season.

Kristen Stewart was cast last month by Summit as Bella Swan, Edward’s girlfiend and the main character in the book, which is the first in a series written by Phoenix-based Meyer who discovered Forks by doing a Web search on Google.
Reflecting the upsurge of interest in Meyer’s book series, which has been cited on national television as the successor to the Harry Potter book series, Pattinson is best known for his role as Cedric Diggory in recent Harry Potter movies.
The Harry Potter roles were Pattinson’s big break in the film world. He is a tall, 21-year-old, London-born actor.
The film company’s choices for the lead roles in the film are causing a division among “Twilight” fans, who are mostly teenage girls. Some are in full approval, other’s against.

On her Web site, Meyer said of Pattinson: “I am ecstatic with Summit’s choice for Edward. There are very few actors who can look both dangerous and beautiful at the same time, and even fewer who I can picture in my head as Edward. Robert Pattinson is going to be amazing.”

Forks Chamber of Commerce Executive Director Marcia Bingham said she felt the casting of Pattinson and Stewart was superb. Bingham and her staff provide “Twilight” packets of information to visitors lured to Forks by the book series, and post digital photos of the visitors on their Web site at www.forkwa.com.
Summit has also announced that Portland will serve as the main filming location, though Forks, LaPush and Port Angeles may also have their share of filming.

“I hope we get two weeks, but I simply don’t know,” Suzy Kellett, Washington State Film Office director told the Forks Forum Friday.

Kellett said it’s still not known if the main cast and crew will come to Forks, or if what’s known as a second-unit comes, without the main cast, to only film background scenes.
Bingham recently led a tour of Twilight sites in and around Forks for a set designer and photographer sent by Summit to pre-plan location filming in the area.

Stops included the Quileute reservation at LaPush, a hike into First Beach, breakfast at the Forks Coffee Shop, “which they call ‘the diner,’” Bingham said, and the Rainforest  Center in the old Oddfellows building.
The chamber director said they checked out Forks High School in detail.

“They went all around the school, walked the halls, went into classrooms,” she said, including locations in the commons area of the newer addition to the high school. Another stop was the entrance to Forks Community Hospital and its surgical area.

However, Bingham said there is no date yet set for location filming in Forks and no plans or decisions have been made, as far as she knows, for the cast and crew coming to Forks.
Summit has announced that filming is scheduled to begin in late February. However it is likely the filming will begin in Portland.

It appears that film production will be done expediently throughout 2008, with Summit expecting a large turnout of young fans across the nation. Summit’s head of production Erik Feig told the Hollywood Reporter in Los Angeles last week that the studio is targeting young people with films like “Twilight” because they are the ones who go out to the movies.