Twilight phenomenon still on a roll

By Chris Cook - Forks Forum editor

The film version of the Forks-set book “Twilight box” topped $160 million in United States box office receipts last week.
Variety, the entertainment industry trade journal, had Twilight at $162.5 million in cumulative box office receipts through Christmas Day.

The film has also topped the box office charts in Great Britain and Australia and is now playing across the globe.
The soundtrack to the Twilight movie went right to number one in the U.S., and is also number one in Great Britain.

Los Angeles-based film studio Summit Entertainment is moving ahead with pre-production work on the sequel to Twilight, a film to be called “New Moon” that is based on the second novel in the four-book series by Phoenix-based author Stephenie Meyer.

Reports show the film is being made with a $50 million budget.

Filming is scheduled to start in March, with tentative filming locations being set up in Rome, Oregon, Vancouver in British Columbia and Los Angeles.

The New Moon film is expected to be shot back-to-back with the third film in the series, “Eclipse.” Each of the new films will be released in upcoming holiday seasons, with New Moon already scheduled to open in the U.S. in November 2009.

Twilight director Catherine Hardwicke is being replaced by Chris Weitz, who directed the 2007 film “The Golden Compass.”
National celebrity publications and Web sites are reporting a controversy over who will play the Twilight character Jacob Black in the upcoming sequel. Taylor Lautner played the role of the Quileute youth and werewolf in “Twilight.”

In New Moon the Quileute werewolves play a major role in the film, as did the vampire Cullen clan of Forks in Twilight.
In New Moon, Jacob becomes a love interest of Bella Swan, the main character of the story who attends Forks High School and is the daughter of imaginary Forks Police Chief Charlie Swan. This occurs after the Cullen family departs Forks.
The breadth of the filming locations moves overseas to Italy in the book.

Whether Kalama High School in southwest Washington is still featured as Forks High School, and whether there is a chance that any scenes are filmed on the West End are still unknowns.