Since The Lord Of The Rings trilogy, film studios have been desperately and unsuccessfully looking for
the next big fantasy franchise with, other than the Harry Potter films, little success. We’ve had Eragon and The Golden Compass and nothing seems to have caught the public imagination, feeling like derivative and watered-down versions of Peter Jackson’s films. Even the news of the upcoming Hobbit movie seems a bit so what. But now there is a rival for the Potter crown: Twilight.

Twilight is the story of Bella Swann, an ordinary American teenager who moved to Forks, Washington, to live with her father following her mother’s marriage. Bella hates Forks, where she has spent her summers; it has the highest rainfall in the continental USA and is a gloomy, miserable place compared with Bella’s Arizona home. But Bella’s boringly ordinary world is rocked when she meets the Cullens. Inhumanly beautiful and standoffish, the Cullens (Rosalie, Alice, Jasper and Edward) draw all eyes to them, and Bella is no exception; forced to work with Edward in Biology, she is hurt when he makes his displeasure with her more than clear. But little does she realise that Edward is trying to protect her.

For Edward is a vampire.

And so are all the other members of his family.

The Cullens have stopped drinking human blood, but they are still vulnerable to its temptations and Edward is particularly drawn to Bella. She is like a drug to him. It is, apparently, something to do with the way she smells – he imprints on her like a baby goose. A classic Buffy and Angel situation ensues with Bella and Edward desperately drawn together and equally desperately trying to stay apart; hanging out with a bunch of vampires is not exactly a passport to a long and happy life for Bella.

Twilight, the debut novel by Arizona housewife Stephenie Meyer, hit the bestseller lists, spawned three sequels, and created an army of fans. These fans are excited and annoyed in equal measure by the casting of Harry Potter’s Cedric Diggory as Edward, and it has to be said that he isn’t the otherworldly dreamboat of the books, though he is handsome; Bella is of course always described as ordinary, so Panic Room’s Kristen Stewart is a good fit. Rounding out the cast are a number of unusually good looking actors including Hardwicke collaborator Nikki Reed and Never Back Down's Cam Gigandet as evil vampire James; helming the film is Lords of Dogtown director Catherine Hardwicke. There’s a blog and the usual grumpy/ecstatic social networking sites and buzz buzz buzz – traffic to MTV.com crashed the site when the cast was announced. If the online chatter is anything to go by, this film will be absolutely huge, and there are at least three more books to go. Better get on with it before Robert Pattinson is too old to play seventeen, hey...

UK Cinema Release Date: Thursday, 12 December 2008

SO WHAT DO YOU THINK...IS IT A HIT OR MISS!!