So far, audiences seem sold on the film, sight unseen. Twilight cost $37 million to make, but judging from the groundswell of support from Meyer’s fans—many of them teenage girls—producers should have little trouble recouping their costs, especially considering the ensemble cast of young male heartthrobs they’ve assembled. Meyer may not be J.K. Rowling, but she’s certainly no slouch. The final book in the series, Breaking Dawn, sold about 1.3 million copies on the day it was released last August (about a sixth of Harry Potter and the Deathly Hallows’ first day). Translation rights to the books have been sold in thirty-three different countries, and the second, New Moon, spent thirty-three weeks on the New York Times children’s best-seller list. Vampire stories have some staying power—especially vampire stories about lovelorn kids.

In adapting the first book, Hardwicke and screenwriter Melissa Rosenberg opted to stay faithful to Meyer’s narrative. (Probably a wise decision, considering how rabid the readership is.) Bella Swan (Kristen Stewart) is an average teen living in Phoenix who decides to move to her father’s house in Forks, Washington, a dreary place where it rains three-quarters of the year, to give her mother and her new stepfather time to travel. At school, Bella meets Edward Cullen (Robert Pattinson), an alluring and initially distant presence, whom she begins to suspect is a vampire. As it turns out, Edward belongs to a coven of beautiful vegetarian vamps—a family of sorts, brought together by a shared mandate to drink animal blood instead of the human kind.

The two begin a relationship, fraught with all the usual, uh, interfaith difficulties. Meanwhile, a rival group of equally beautiful but less friendly bloodsuckers descends on the town, one of whom decides to hunt Bella for sport. The chase is on, and it’s up to Edward to save her. “It’s just such a great metaphor for unrequited love,” says Rosenberg. “Bella feels very normal, and that can be hard when she’s surrounded by these modelesque figures, who are so difficult to relate to physically. It’s the same for any kid growing up in L.A., when you’re surrounded by models and actors.”

Perhaps energized by the beauty-myth subtext and the allure of forbidden love, Meyer’s fan base has proven to be an active one. Groups like Twilighters, Twi-Hards, and even Twilight Moms have organized online, and in July they flocked to San Diego’s Comic-Con, where Meyer, Hardwicke, Rosenberg, and members of the principal cast showed footage and took questions from the crowd—at least when they could be heard over the screams. The response to actors Robert Pattinson, Cam Gigandet, and Taylor Lautner was “a little like the Beatles on Ed Sullivan,” Rosenberg recalls. “It was insanity.” The coming-of-age story’s sequels have yet to be planned, but given the reaction so far, Hardwicke is sanguine about her chances of revisiting the series. “I mean,” she says, “who wouldn’t want to be bitten on the neck by a handsome vampire?”

TWILIGHT IS OUT IN NOVEMBER 2008 FROM SUMMIT ENTERTAINMENT

See all 11 photoshoots by VMAN Magazine

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So, without further ado, MTV hereby present the third entry in their “Twilight” Stars Answer Fans’ Burning Questions series. Feel free to keep submitting your wildest queries, and look below for all you’ve ever wanted to know about Anna Kendrick’s lung capacity, Lutz’s love of velour, and RPattz’s promise to suck on your neck. (Head over to the MTV Movies blog for news on special fan events leading up to the “Twilight” premiere.)

Q: “What’s it like kissing the most gorgeous man alive, Robert Pattinson?” – Ceejay
Kristen Stewart (Bella Swan): His teeth are pretty sharp. It’s great. I like it. It’s cool.

MTV: People are also debating whether Edward and Bella will French kiss.
Robert Pattinson (Edward Cullen): It’s more of a Chilean kiss.
Stewart: What’s that?
Pattinson: That just wasn’t funny. Whenever we kiss, I just try to kill her all the time.
Stewart: And I love that. She’s a total sadomasochist, if you think about it.
Pattinson: And I’m just gay.
Stewart: Or impotent.

Q: “Kellan Lutz likes Runts. Do you have a favorite candy?” – Liz
Cam Gigandet (James): It changes a lot, because I do something I shouldn’t do: I will lock in on a candy, and I will eat it until I can never have it again. I don’t know why. I do love cookie dough more than anything in the world, but that’s not really a candy. I would probably say, right now, it’s Heath bars. No, Skor. Skor bars! That’s it for sure.

MTV: Well, Mike Welch was sent thousands of socks after he made a comment about how he needed them. Are you ready for thousands of Skor bars to come your way?
Gigandet: Hmmm … I love Lamborghinis. [Laughs.] I love them, I really do.

Q: “If you had a choice to play any character (gender aside), who would it be?” – Bob
Kellan Lutz (Emmett Cullen): I’d play Rosalie. She’s just so feisty. And you know, to think about the gender thing, playing a female would be quite fun. It would be a stretch for an actor who is male, so yeah, I would enjoy playing your role.
Nikki Reed (Rosalie Hale): Well, thanks, babe.
Lutz: And she has a hot outfit. I’m wearing velour, by the way, so I doubt anyone said Emmett.
Reed: My monkey man! I think I would play Alice. There’s something about Alice that’s just [intriguing]. I’m sure a lot of other people feel this too. Like her psychic abilities … and that she was in a mental hospital. They checked her into a mental hospital before she became a vampire because she could see the future, and so they thought she was crazy.

Q: “Do you have the lung capacity to speak as fast, for as long, as Jessica? Because I don’t.” – Evangeline Annie Van Holzen
Anna Kendrick (Jessica Stanley): It was a cake walk after “Rocket Science”! I remember Stephenie Meyer [being on set] the day that I was doing that big speech about the Cullens. It was just a lot of dialogue. … She is quite a chatterbox, but it wasn’t too bad, because it all seemed to make sense and come from this really sweet, desperate place.

Q: “Are you aware that you’re being stalked?” – Serena
Peter Facinelli (Carlisle Cullen): Am I? Yes, and I wish you would take the tent down from the front of my house — now. That’s kind of rude! No, I had no idea.

Q: “If there were such a thing as vampires, would you want to be turned? – Kristin
Christian Serratos (Angela Weber): I don’t know. I probably would, just out of pure curiosity.

MTV: Would you want to be frozen now or later on in life?
Serratos: There’s a lot of thought that’s going to go into me becoming a vampire. I’d probably wait — no, why not? If I’m going to do something crazy, I’m going to do it now. I’d become a vampire right now.

Q: “If you could describe yourself in three words, what would they be?” – Em
Ashley Greene (Alice Cullen): I would like to think that I’m kind of chipper, upbeat and fun.
Jackson Rathbone (Jasper Hale): Um … I’m a loner who loves company.
Greene: [Laughs.] He’s a weirdo, basically.

Q: Michael, how does working on a production like “Twilight” compare to the work you’ve done in the past? – Ann
Michael Welch (Mike Newton): Well, I started out my career in television, just doing different guest spots. [I] started out with sitcoms. Actually, my first role that I got was as Young Niles on “Frasier,” because when I was younger, I was always doing impressions. That’s how I broke into acting to begin with. That allowed me to break into the sitcom world, and then from there I made the transition into dramas and then got lucky enough to be on a show called “Joan of Arcadia,” which was on for two years. Since then, I’ve been doing independent movies that probably will never come out, most of them. And then all of the sudden, this “Twilight” just came out of nowhere! It’s the biggest thing I’ve ever been a part of, man. It’s so exciting.

Q: “Robert, will you suck my blood out?” – Alley
Pattinson: Yes. Right now? Do they give their addresses and stuff?

MTV: They give their names, and I am sure if you click on MTV.com, you could e-mail any of them.
Pattinson: “Will you suck my blood out?” Is that, like, a worried question? Or is it kind of a desiring question? I won’t if you don’t want me to.