A lot of things were going on yesterday. Oprah was announcing the end of her daytime talk show. Sarah Palin was touring the country, promoting her new book and jabbing at Obama’s policies at every turn. Surely, Taylor Swift was walking around somewhere telling someone that she wasn’t dating Taylor Lautner.

But ask most any girl under the age of 16 (and their moms, for that matter) what November 20 meant to them, and they’d tell you one thing: “New Moon.”

At midnight last night, girls were lining up at theaters all around the world to catch the first glimpse of the sequel. Would it include all the important parts from the book? they wondered. Will the special effects be cool? Will there be enough Edward?

In the interest of full disclosure, I’ll admit I was asking myself the same things as I walked into the theater. And in the end, I was not disappointed.

Catherine Hardwicke’s “Twilight” was lacking in these ways: there was stilted dialogue, awkward special effects and some funny scenes that weren’t meant to be funny. Director Chris Weitz transitioned the cold, awkward world of “Twilight” into a warm, emotional and dynamic “New Moon.”

Screenwriter Melissa Rosenberg seems to have taken a little more time with this script, as the banter between the characters feels natural. She leaves the “lion and the lamb” quotes in the book where they belong.

The movie touches on almost every important scene in the book, which will please die-hard (or Twi-hard) fans. The movie moves quickly, giving about 15 minutes to process every intense emotion that Stephenie Meyer spent 100 pages talking about, so it can feel a bit rushed. But when you realize that the movie is over two hours long, you re-think that assessment.

The only part of the film that was seriously lacking was the wolf pack. Only two of the four have any serious build, and if you’re going to spend half the movie walking around shirtless, you need to at least get rid of the muffin top. Not to mention the fact that the wolf transformations are by turns incredibly realistic and incredibly…not. The wolves sometimes look fierce and other times, look like cartoons, which is a big disappointment if you’ve seen “The Golden Compass.” And there’s an unforgivable sequence where wolf pack leader Sam Uley jumps off of a cliff and you feel like you’re watching an animation from the “Tomb Raider” computer game you had as a kid.

Kristen Stewart and Taylor Lautner have incredible chemistry. Kristen plays the broken Bella very well, and Lautner exudes the warmth of his character. Plus, he’s not bad to look at either. In the end, your heart breaks when he begs her to stay, and the most loyal Edward fans wonder if maybe they wouldn’t choose Jacob instead.

But in the end, the movie brings you back to Edward and Bella, as it should. It ends on a well-deserved cliff-hanger, leaving the Twi-hards squealing until next June, when the third installment, “Eclipse,” is scheduled for release.

Fans got to submit their questions before the Q & A session and Lutz, who plays Emmett in “Twilight,” answered some randomly selected questions and made the fans swoon with his charm. Here are some of the questions he got to answer.

QUESTION: How do you feel about being part of one of the biggest movie franchises of all time?

KELLAN LUTZ: You know what? It’s a real, it’s an honor to be a part of something that fans are so loyal to and support. It’s a magic carpet ride. To all of us actors, I think we really are living in this “Twilight” zone and it really hasn’t sunk into how big of a phenomenon it is.

Q: What is you favorite part of playing the role of Emmett?

KL: I love how much fun he gets to pick at Bella, especially in “Eclipse.” Kristen Stewart is amazing. Just to make her laugh when we were shooting and have her crack up. She would be like “I’m sorry Kellan, I can’t take it!” It’s so funny. It’s fun.

Q: What is it like playing a tough big brother?

KL: I have a lot of experience playing a tough big brother. I have a large family and I got picked on growing up and I did some picking on the little ones. So it’s always fun playing the big brother role, especially trying to crack jokes on Rob when he doesn’t get it. Again, we have such a great cast and we’re all, without any of us it wouldn’t be the family that we’ve forged.

Q: What is your favorite non-Emmett scene in “New Moon?”

KL: I’ll have to say just watching the Volturi. I never got the chance to meet them. But Michael Sheen’s amazing. I finally got to meet them while shooting “Eclipse,” and they are a great group of actors.

Q: Do you have any secrets you can share with us about “Eclipse?”

KL: I’m topless throughout the whole movie, pretty much!

Q: What are your plans for after “The Twilight Saga” ends?

KL: I’m gonna cry and be depressed. I love being a part of this franchise. To have all you guys, fans, and to play Emmett…I wake up happy everyday and I’m not sad. But when it’s all said and done, I want to be the next action star. I want to play Jason Bourne.

Brooklynne Peters and Melissa Unger collaborated with Tanya DeJesus on this story

Robert Pattinson and Kristen Stewart (Media credit: KCSPresse / Splash News Online)

Robert Pattinson, Kristen Stewart, and Taylor Lautner arrived in Paris on Monday and checked into a luxurious hotel before going out for a late dinner where they met up with Fergie, People reported.

They did a press event on Tuesday and got ready to leave for the next stop on their European “New Moon” press tour.

But Robert and Kristen were among the last to leave.

“[Pattinson and Stewart] were the last ones to leave the terminal to board the plane,” one photographer on the scene told People. “Out on the tarmac, he took her hand, like young lovers. They stopped and looked at each other, their plane, the scene. They seemed very calm, in love. They continued holding hands boarding the plane.”

Let the comments begin.

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See the best ones below.

Catch the rest at newmoonmovie.org

Photo credit: ralphy137, robpattinson.blogspot.com

In a recent study, Fandango found that “New Moon,” which doesn’t open until November 20, accounted for 37 percent of its recent ticket sales, beating out “Cloudy with a Chance of Meatballs,” which had 36 percent and “The Informant!,” which only had 9 percent. “Jennifer’s Body,” raked in 4 percent of sales.

Speaking of “Jennifer’s Body,” Fandango polled users, asking “Which role would you most like to see Megan Fox play?” Thirty-two percent of responders said they want to see the sexy star play Wonder Woman, while 30 percent said Catwoman. But what’s most astonishing is that 13 percent answered “Bella in ‘Breaking Dawn.’” Thirteen percent of polled moviegoers want to see Kristen Stewart get the boot.

A new still released from “New Moon” shows Kristen Stewart and Robert Pattinson locked in a loving gaze.

“New Moon” is one of the most anticipated films of the fall movie-watching season, and you can bet that Blast is going to be all over it as we progress toward release date.

“It’s crazy,” the “New Moon” hunk said. “But the fans help. They’re a big part of the motivation.”

Lautner credited a childhood karate teacher, who also played a blue Power Ranger in the hit series. The karate coach encouraged him to go into acting in the first place, he says.

He also evaded a question about his rumored love interest, Disney’s Selena Gomez.

“She’s a great girl,” he said, saying nothing else.

The New York Daily news reports that The Twilight star will appear nude in a new indie movie called “Welcome to the Rileys.”

“Rileys” stars James Gandolfini (Tony Soprano) and Melissa Leo, who play a grieving couple who are still facing the pain of losing their young daughter eight years later.

Stewart plays a 16-year-old stripper/prostitute named Mallory. Somehow she helps reunite the sad couple.

“The speculation is that Stewart will strip in several scenes,” The Daily News reported.

Twilight mania is already in full swing over this flick. This is up there with Daniel Radcliffe’s little stage show.

“It’s an independent movie that nobody would normally see and now it’s like, ‘Oh, let’s go see Bella in this stripper movie—it’ll be crazy!” the actress told WENN.com.

“Bella” is also playing Joan Jett in another upcoming flick.

The young actress is getting lots of publicity lately for something besides “Twilight,” the biopic “The Runaways,” where she supposedly shares a passionate kiss with 15-year-old darling Dakota Fanning, who plays Cherie Currie.

What do you guys think of Kristen as Joan Jett? What do you think of her kissing Dakota Fanning?

But if one Australian celebrity tabloid has it right — and we know how spot-on these tabs usually are — not only did Kristen Stewart and Robert Pattinson get it on, but she’s pregnant with his child.

The New York Daily News reported that an “insider” quoted by Australia’s New Weekly said that Stewart was, uh, late, and “she obviously started to thinking that she could be pregnant. And because of the timing, she thinks Rob could be the father.” The tabloid also reported that Stewart had a friend buy her a home pregnancy test.

The magazine also reported that Stewart is getting hate mail from fans because she has an “official” boyfriend named Michael Angarano.

It is important to note that neither Stewart, nor Pattison, nor any of their spokespeople have ever gone on the record, at any time, ever, to say that the two are romantic with each other.

Also, there is no evidence that anything in this story is true. But you can’t get enough, can you?

BLAST: So how was shooting in Vancouver different from Portland?

MW: Vancouver is one of my favorite cities, not only to film in but just to be in. I’ve shot a few different things over there over the past 10 years. I mean, Portland is great, there’s some great poetry and a great book store up there, but Vancouver, there’s just something about the way the city feels… That’s just the differences in the city, the differences in the films themselves, I mean, totally different. By the time “New Moon” rolled around, we tried to keep it as big a secret as we could [our locations], but it was impossible because all it took was one person to spot Rob or Taylor on the street and in 20 minutes there were hundreds of people there and there was paparazzi there and you know, it was just much more of an ordeal.

BLAST: Speaking of Portland, are you going to be at the Twilight Vampire Baseball Event?

MW: Over the July 4th weekend? Yeah yeah, it’s for charity, it’s a Make-A-Wish event.

BLAST: And you’ve done charity work before. You did environmental charity right?

MW: I won some sort of environmental award for some reason a couple years back… I guess since I drive a Prius or something. I mean a made a couple of environmental videos.

The main charity I’ve been with is Kids with a Cause, and we’re a multi-cause charity, but the ultimate goal is to help kids in need. We started out as a local charity, visiting like, orphanages, burn centers, etc. Now we’re trying to go international and help kids that need some of the basic fundamental things in life so they can pursue their own happiness. It’s been very rewarding

BLAST: So there’s Team Edward shirts, Team Jacob thongs, even Team Tyler’s Van merchandise -– any Team Mike stuff popping up?

MW: There has been a little bit of Team Mike that I’ve seen. I’ve seen a couple t-shirts, but it was mostly my friends making fun of me [laughs]. I do get people every now and then telling me they are on Team Mike.

BLAST: If you had to pick a side, would you really be Team Mike, or choose between Edward and Jacob? Or are you contractually obligated like I’m guessing Kristen is to be ambiguous?

MW: I actually… between Edward and Team Jacob, I’m actually Team Jacob. I like Edward, but I… and I think it’s more of a gender thing more than anything else. I think Jacob represents more of a practical relationship, so I’d go Jacob -– but if there is a legitimate Team Mike that emerges, I will be happy to join it.

BLAST: Bella does some crazy stuff in “New Moon.” Did you do anything so daring in high school?

MW: You know, [laughs] one thing that I used to do was go into the local high school with my car with my friend in the passenger seat and do really lame donuts and stuff and every now and then I’d get into little shenanigans like that. The most dangerous thing I did as a kid was, my grandma lived in the senior center, well not a senior center, more of a neighborhood. [Laughs] This is just so lame I can’t believe I’m telling you, anyway, and kids weren’t allowed to walk around unattended so my cousin and I would just walk around and avoid security.

BLAST: That’s pretty bad ass.

MW: Oh now that I think of it –- when I was a kid, I actually grew up in a mobile home and there was actually what I later discovered to be meth lab right across from me. My neighbor and I would play cops and bad guys and we would spy on them and follow them around and stuff because we knew they were bad, but we had no idea.

BLAST: So has that ass shaking dance [from outside of the diner in “Twilight”] always won you the girls?

MW: Oh sure, that thing has followed me around like you wouldn’t believe [laughs]. No, nothing like that ever seemed to work in real life. I was similar to Mike Newton in high school — I hope I wasn’t that annoying — but that was my angle: “I’m the quirky guy, love me please.” But that never quite worked.

BLAST: So you said at some point they almost didn’t include the movie scene in New Moon? What’s that about?

MW: You know it’s a tricky thing when you try and turn a book into a movie because a movie is only two hours and there’s only so much you can fit in, but yeah, what they originally did was they took that moment between Jacob and Bella and put it in a different scene of the movie. Luckily Taylor and Kristen lobbied that scene for me to Chris Weitz saying it absolutely had to be in, and it’s a good scene. They weren’t really lobbying for me, it’s just, how can you not have that scene in there? Yeah, so I was really happy to hear that, and it was great for me because I got to do Mike’s best scene in the book.

BLAST: Any secrets from the “New Moon” set? Like maybe Justin Chon is really diva?

MW: Well I can tell you that Justin Chon actually has 3 nipples.

BLAST: You’re definitely making that up.

MW: Yeah. [Laughs] It’s funny, because that’s the thing everyone’s looking for, something to say, but these are pretty uncontroversial people.

BLAST: I guess that’s why pictures of the cast smoking cigarettes on set became some big scandal?

MW: Yeah, that’s about as scandalous as it gets.

Who wants to start this “legitimate” Team Mike already?

Take a look below, and tell us what you think!

Bella (Kristen Stewart) and Edward (Robert Pattinson) share an intimate moment

Laurent (Edi Gathegi) threatens Bella (Kristen Stewart) before the werewolves come and rescue her

Behind the scenes with Kristen Stewart and director Chris Weisz

The stars similarly presented a clip of “Twilight” at last year’s Movie Awards.

“The Twilight Saga: New Moon” is set to be released November 20, 2009.

Last year’s clip was of the climactic Ballet Studio scene. Blast Twilight fans, what clip do you think will be shown at this year’s Movie Awards?

Everyone has a favorite summer. It’s that summer when you worked some crappy job to pay the bills, spent your spare time reading excellent books, blew your paycheck on movies and trips to the beach and lay on your bed in your underwear on the scorching days in July when you didn’t have any air conditioning. It’s that summer when you fell in love, or severely in like, and you had time to dream, or nap or write really terrible poetry. It’s that summer you spent riding around in a friend’s car at one a.m., with the windows open and the radio playing that one great song you listened to over and over again and never get sick of. You’re tired, or drunk, or just in a really good mood, and even though it’s a complete cliché to think so, you find that you feel freer than you ever have before.

“Adventureland,” the new film by Greg Mottola, is not a story so much as a creative compilation of these moments in time. Ostensibly set in 1987, it could be any summer, in anyone’s hometown, with anyone’s friends. This particular moment takes place in Pittsburgh, in a broken-down amusement park called Adventureland, where the games are rigged, the corn dogs have been out in the sun awhile and everyone has a story about some guy who got decapitated on one of the rides.

Adventureland is a purgatory of sorts for the main character, James Brennan (Jesse Eisenberg). He’s a newly minted college graduate who had originally planned on spending his summer in Europe with his rich friend but instead was forced to return to his childhood home after his parents ran into financial troubles. A degree holder in classical literature, he is qualified for nothing, and so goes to work at Adventureland. There he runs the said rigged games, parties with his co-workers and falls in love. Eisenberg, with his mop of curly hair and body of sharp angles at first seems a bit of a caricature (he’s so awkward in the first quarter of the film, he’s practically twitching). But he grew on me after a while, and by the end of the film mellows his performance to something more rounded and dimensional.

I’ve never been a big fan of Kristen Stewart who plays James’ wounded summer love, Em. I find her misunderstood, girl-next-door schtick a little bland (and more than a little annoying). But there are moments in this film that Stewart plays with a wonderful slow burn, demonstrating she may not be the one-note actress I assumed she was. There’s an especially terrific scene with her father and society-seeking step-mother; the dialogue is typical for a family fight scene, but Stewart delivers a quiet, understated little performance that made me forgive her tonelessness exhibited in other films.

But the most surprising star is Ryan Reynolds as the park’s mechanic and cool dude, Connell. I kept waiting for Reynolds to pop out of his shell, start making dirty/smart wise cracks and have a good joke involving masturbation. But Reynolds played Connell instead like someone slightly broken-down — he’s much like the rides he fixes. Yes, he’s the coolest guy at the park (he brings a guitar to work and claims to have played with Lou Reed). But below his shallow small-town mystique, Connell knows that he’s settled. Most of his co-workers are simply there for the summer before heading off to their elite universities to major in Russian literature; Connell will be there, or somewhere very much like it, forever.

It’s a touching portrayal, but it must be mentioned that “Adventureland” is also terribly funny — Mottola appears to have learned from his previous experience with “Superbad.” He’s kept all of the comedic tropes that worked so well in that endeavor (the sharp, witty pot humor, the understated one-liners) and marginalized the gross-out and toilet humor to a more manageable state.

The always-wonderful Bill Hader and Kristen Wiig play the husband-and-wife team who run the park, and one of my wishes is that there were more of them. They are the kind, but slightly clueless, bosses everyone has had before.

My favorite summer was three years ago; I remember every day of it, in sounds, and smells and orange-tinted light. “Adventureland” may not have much of a plot, but it perfectly captures the essence of that one great summer- a lazy, sensory stop-gap to the next big adventure in your life.

About three things I am absolutely positive: first, I just saw Twilight. Second, there is a part of me – and I don’t know how minuscule that part might be – that thinks it was almost okay. Third, it was unconditionally and irrevocably hilarious.

So, all you little spider-monkeys, I did in fact just return from a late-night showing of Twilight (the one that all the embarrassed middle-aged moms went to) and immediately sat down to pen my thoughts on the matter.

In a word? It was hysterical. To borrow a trick from Ms. Meyer’s book (or rather her thesaurus), not only was it funny but it was a riotously jocular humdinger of a film.

First, let’s talk tech specs. The film’s cinematography viewed like a bad spoof of 300, only with more vampires, 98% less blood, and 99.9% more extreme close-ups. And when there aren’t a billion poorly-edited cuts between Edward’s face and Bella’s face, there was slow-mo. And a lot of it. At any moment during the baseball scene, for example, I expected some half-naked guy with a lobster claw arm to glide down from the treetops and ask to join the game. I mean, I have a hard time swallowing slow-mo in an action flick, much less in a film in which half of the scenes consist of the characters stretching out on a field to gaze into each other’s soul.

And that brings me to the moment we were all waiting for, fans and anti-fans alike. I’m not going to lie, folks, I was bouncing on my seat in anticipation of the sparklies. Color me curious, but I was excited to see how they would accomplish that effect. Would they use lens flares? Glitter? Bits of cubic zirconia glued to the makeup caked on Robert Pattinson’s face? There seemed to be a lot of options, so the fact that they decided to use Pattinson’s natural (and profuse) perspiration is something of a letdown.

But to be fair, the effects aren’t all bad. After an hour and a half of “Crouching Tiger, Hidden Dragon”-style soaring through treetops, the big throw-down at the end between James and Edward is actually pretty exciting. In fact, it almost made me appreciate Meyer’s choice of the ballet studio as the battleground in the first place, and on screen I actually winced at Bella’s injuries whereas in the book my reaction consisted of a dash of meh and decent dose of yawn.

And speaking of yawn, that’s a good description of the acting. Kristen Stewart definitely had her moments, but Robert Pattinson not so much. At times his performance is painfully stale and at others, particularly during his and Bella’s first meeting, it is overworked and over-acted. For most of the film, he comes off as either constipated or as a creepy prima donna, or perhaps as a constipated creepy prima donna. It seems to me though that it’s through no fault of his own; the writing is simply that bad. Lines that are passable in a book (”…and so the lion fell in love with the lamb,” for instance) cannot possibly be delivered in any way that makes them sound anything other than horrifically cheesy.

Which brings me to my absolute favorite line of the film, from the sparkle scene:

[CUE "DRAMATIC" MUSIC]
“…This is the skin of a killer.”

Take a minute to laugh, it’s okay. That’s the line that made me wonder if director Catherine Hardwicke had decided to spoof Twilight rather than adapt it; it was a line that I could imagine in a Cleolinda Jones recap and a line that I’m a little jealous for not having written myself. I mean, Edward, come on – you sparkle. “This is the skin of a killer?” It’s like saying “These are the eyebrows of a vampire!” or “Beware my shins, for they are murderous!” I have to wonder how many takes Pattinson needed for the line just because I would never be able to deliver it with a straight face. And frankly, that line sums up the film perfectly: it’s unintentionally ridiculous and takes itself way too seriously, as if it doesn’t realize that it’s actually a film about glitter.

BLAST: Where you prepared for the fact that there were going to be mobs at your last two events and they’d have to get shut down?

RP: No, not at all. It’s not even the last two anymore, it’s been all of them.

BLAST: Since Comic-con. I was at Comic-con, and I remember when you came out there were just cheers.

RP: It hasn’t died down at all. It happened in [Italy], it happened in Mexico. It’s completely ridiculous.

BLAST: What do people at home think about it? Are your parents laughing, thinking you’re the new George Clooney?

RP: Well my sister was. She was just thinking, “Oh, what road did you take?” They think it’s like completely ridiculous.

BLAST: Have you talked to anyone else who’s on tour, like Kristen or Taylor or anyone?

RP: I haven’t actually. Do you how they’re doing? [laughter]

BLAST: They have not had the same response that you’ve had. That’s why I was asking. Are they-

RP: Are they what? Are they pissed off? [laughter] Um, I don’t know. I haven’t actually asked them.

BLAST: The movie’s coming out in less than a week. Is there anything that you’d go back and change about it? Or prepare for it to come out?

RP: No, I wouldn’t change anything about it. I mean, if I was doing it now, knowing it was going to be this audience, I think I probably would have done it differently. I’m not sure how. But I think, at the end of the day, it’s a good thing I went into it thinking it’s a small thing because it essentially is. It’s a small story, it’s an intimate story, and I think it comes across as being very human rather than being a big epic thing, which I think no one would have really appreciated. I think it looked very organic when you look at it. I hope people aren’t expecting to be like some like, “Waah!” like some like huge, you know, “E.T.” thing, because it’s really not. It seems very personal. The book is very personal. Hopefully, hopefully, you know, it will live up to its hype.

BLAST: In previous interviews, you [and Kristen] said that producers said, “Don’t take it so seriously, make it more of a teen flick.” Did you guys make it more of a serious movie or is it going to end up being more of a [teen movie]?

RP: I think the fans of the book would be kind of upset if it was too too serious, because it’s not exactly “War and Peace” or something. I mean, it’s funny. I had Catherine give me a copy of the book with all the instances where Edward smiles and jokes and stuff. They were all highlighted, because I was so determined to make him like the most depressing character in the history of fiction. I think that’s the point. You don’t know how something is coming out, you don’t get in the edit room or whatever. So no, it’s good how it turned out. I think the beginning is how I wanted it to be, and I think it’s better. No girl would ever think the perfect guy would be some kind of manic-depressive.

BLAST: Depends on the girl.

RP: Well yeah. If I was a girl, I’d love it. I love manic-depressive girls. But you know, I don’t really.

BLAST: Are you prepared for the girls out there to be like, “Rob, will you go to prom with me?” because I’ve had a couple say that’s what they’re planning on asking.

RP: When is prom?

BLAST: May? Something?

RP: Well, that’s quite a long way off.

SAUGUS, Mass. — The teenage girl came out of the Hot Topic store, eyes glazed with a silly smile on her face. Her mother ran up to meet her, just as the words started tumbling out of the daughter’s lips.

“He talked to me,” she gasped, as her mother smiled along but tried to calm the teen down.

“She has epilepsy,” the mother explained, “and I don’t want her to seize.”

Then she scooped up her daughter and hurried away, without giving her name, to make room for the next giggling girl.

Fan dedication: defined.

She was just one of hundreds who flocked to the Square One Mall north of Boston on Friday. The object of their fanaticism wasn’t one of the Jonas Brothers or Miley Cyrus, but rather a soft-spoken, spiky-haired Brit named Robert Pattinson.

In the words of one indignant passerby who was turned away from shopping at the barricaded Hot Topic: “He isn’t even famous.”

Though Pattinson, 22, may not be a household name yet, to the fan community of Stephenie Meyer’s vampire “Twilight” series, (and hardcore Harry Potter fans who remember he played Cedric Diggory) he is second to none. Playing the lead male character Edward in the upcoming vampire film “Twilight,” the fan hysteria has reached peak heights.

“At first I thought maybe he wasn’t as good for Edward, but now I think he’s perfect,” said Selys Rivera, 14, of Worcester. “He’s completely perfect for Edward. He’s amazing.”

Pattinson, along with co-stars Kristen Stewart, Taylor Lautner, Edi Gathegi and Rachelle Lefavre, is headlining the Hot Topic-sponsored movie tour to promote “Twilight” in the final days before the film’s release on November 21. The Saugus event was Pattinson’s third and final stop on the tour after the event scheduled in San Francisco was canceled after fans mobbed the mall.

Pattinson, Stewart, and the trio of Lautner, Gathegi and Lefavre toured to 13 cities across the U.S. from November 10 through November 15.

“[The hysteria] hasn’t died down at all,” Pattinson told Blast in a brief interview at the Saugus Hot Topic. “It happened in [Italy], it happened in Mexico. It’s completely ridiculous.”

Here in Saugus, the crowd was much tamer than the events in San Francisco and Chicago. Wristbands were given, starting at 9 p.m. Thursday, to the first 500 people who bought the Hot Topic official “Twilight” tour T-shirt. The Saugus police were no-nonsense about the event and were a steady presence around the mall throughout the night.

“We got here at about 9 p.m. yesterday and we were there like all night long,” said Attleboro resident Amanda Pease, 20. “We only left to go to Starbucks.”

At 5 p.m. Friday, a crowd of a couple hundred girls had gathered around a stage that was set up for Pattinson to speak to the fans for the question and answer portion of the event. Some had camped out for more than 20 hours just for the chance to meet their beloved “Edward,” while others had arrived only moments before to wait around until Pattinson spoke at on the stage.

A security presence was felt. A barricade was set up like a moat around the stage to protect Pattinson from the overzealousness of any rabid fan-girls.

Keep your browsers on Blast because this Friday we will be interviewing “Twilight” star Robert Pattinson! Until then, enjoy the pics:

All of these pictures are the property of Summit Entertainment.

When asked what they could possibly be waiting for outside the entrance to the convention center’s massive Hall H entrance, the reply was unanimous.

“Twilight.”

They would wait 16 more hours.

“Twilight” was released in 2005, and has spawned two sequels: “New Moon” and “Eclipse.” Collectively, the series has sold more than 5.5 million copies worldwide.

Taylor Lautner, who plays the character Jacob Black in the upcoming movie adaptation of the books said, “The fans are the driving force behind this thing.”

The series tells the story of 17-year-old Bella Swan, who meets the intriguing yet elusive Edward Cullen upon her arrival at Forks, Wash. Edward, as well as the rest of his family, turn out to be a secret coven of vegetarian vampires; they don’t kill humans. Bella and Edward’s inevitable love is doomed from the beginning as her being a human draws various “bad” vampires to come and kill her. In “New Moon”, a second love interest is introduced in the form of Jacob, Bella’s best friend who just happens to be a werewolf.

For the August 2 release of  “Breaking Dawn,” Meyer’s fourth and final book in the series, distributors have printed more than 3.2 million copies; more than half the copies of the rest of the series now in print, and a record first-printing for “Twilight” publishing company Little, Brown and Company.

“Breaking Dawn” will answer the big Twilight questions: Who will Bella choose, and will she become a vampire?

Meyer’s saga has become a cultural phenomenon, though this year is by far its biggest yet. In addition to the release of “Breaking Dawn”, a movie adaptation of the novel will be released December 12 starring Kristen Stewart as Bella and Robert Pattinson as Edward.

This year’s San Diego Comic-con hosted a special event Thursday to promote the upcoming film. Meyer, director Catherine Hardwicke, and some of the movie’s cast attended the panel. Waiting anxiously for them were thousands of screaming fans, though only about 6,500 were admitted to the hall.

“I saw the book as a film before I saw it as a book,” said Meyer of her excitement for the “Twilight” movie.

The Comic-con event was the first experience the cast had of the true intensity behind the “Twilight” fan base, and it was clear from their faces and the nervous hitch in their responses that none of them were prepared for the thousands of girls, women and even men who were screaming their hearts out for the characters that had captured their hearts.

“I fell in love with ["Twilight"] just like you guys did,” said Hardwicke to the audience. “I wanted to see Bella and Edward living, breathing. You know we tried to do the best we could [for the movie].”

Stewart said that, as a “sappy, sensitive girl”, she took the role of Bella to try to depict the “perfect-but-not-perfect-but-perfect-in-its-ideologicalness love” felt between Bella and Edward.

“Bella and I are really different if you get inside my head,” said Meyer, who said she gets just as frustrated with Bella’s decisions as the rest of her fans. “I’m actually a lot more like Edward.”

Meyer was able to confirm that a song by Muse; her favorite band and some of the inspiration behind the series, had been signed for the movie soundtrack, while Hardwicke confirmed that two songs written by Robert Pattinson will be included in the soundtrack of the movie, and that his spontaneous piano playing during filming might be used as Bella’s Lullaby.

The three “bad vampires” were a large part of the panel; Cam Gigandet as James, Rachelle Lefevre as Victoria and Edi Gathegi as Laurent.

“I wanted to be a part of [Bella's] world in every way I could,” said Lefevre. “If that meant I had to terrorize her than so be it.”

Trailers and clips of the film, especially the extended “ballet studio scene” aired at during the panel, show the movie version of “Twilight” focusing more on action than the novel did. This is good news for Gigandet, Lefevre and Gathegi because that means more screen time for them before their inevitable deaths. For Gigandet, his comes at the end of the first movie.

“We don’t actually die because you’re stuck with us on DVD forever,” joked Lefevre.

Fans have been initially hesitant about how the cast compares to the characters, and none have felt this sting more than now-”Twilight”-golden-boy Robert Pattinson.

“I just wanted to play [Edward] because he’s the hottest vampire in the world,” said Pattinson with a laugh, causing a deafening scream from the crown.

“[Vampires are hot] because that’s how I write them,” Meyer added, which turned the screaming into a deafening roar.

Although movie adaptations of “New Moon” and “Eclipse”, the second and third novels in the series, have not yet been confirmed, the idea that the “Twilight” fan base will not cause “Twilight” to be a box-office smash, regardless of the quality of the film, seems nearly impossible.

“I would love to be in [a sequel]. Love to,” said Gathegi .

“So would I,” said Gigandet wistfully.

More to come later, I promise.

Released in 2005, Stephenie Meyer’s novel Twilight follows the story of 17-year-old Bella Swan (Kristen Stewart) as she moves to the new town of Forks, Washington and unsuspectingly falls in love with vampire (Robert Pattinson). The third installment of teen series booted the last Harry Potter novel out of the number one spot on the New York Times best seller list three weeks after its release.

We will lovingly keep you up-to-date on the countdown to December 12 and the release of Twilight the movie. For now, enjoy this: