April 22, 2208

In the quiet, picturesque town of St. Helens, Ore., actress Kristen Stewart ("Into the Wild") walks down a creepy alley as a chill haunts the night air. It's all part of a scene for her upcoming film "Twilight," the first adaptation of Stephenie Meyer's best-selling series about a young woman, Bella (Stewart), who falls madly in love with a teenage vampire (well, sort of). Tonight, Bella has just visited a bookstore and is about to be harassed by some unfriendly boys -- that is, until her unrequited love, Edward Cullen (Robert Pattinson), shows up to save the day.

Although much of the American public hasn't heard of "Twilight" (yet), Meyer's initial three books spawned rabid fans, mostly teenage girls, who have fallen for the romantic exploits of Bella and Edward and eagerly await the film's arrival. The modern-day story has also struck a chord because Meyer's depiction of vampires is somewhat unconventional. Case in point, they don't have fangs and they walk around in the daylight (at least gloomy daylight). And Edward's "clan" has chosen to be the equivalent of vegetarians in that they don't drink human blood (whew!).

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"A lot of that, sort of, reinvention of it that is fun for audiences, but at the core, it's really a love story of two people who can't be together," producer Wyck Godfrey says. "It's a lot about that aching desire you feel as a teenager and the kind of push and pull of obsessive love, and I think that's what really connected with girls. And then the supernatural element of it was just an added quality to it."

Summit Entertainment, which snagged the rights to the franchise, hopes that genre factor will entice a lot of fans' boyfriends (or husbands) to tag along to the theaters. Veteran Hong Kong stunt man and second unit director Andy Cheung has been working with the film's director, Catherine Hardwicke ("Lords of Dogtown"), to create a new take on vampire action, because unlike traditional legend, Meyer's immortals don't turn into bats or fly through the air. Cheung says, "They are like a cat. They can jump far. They are really fast. We want [the action] to be exciting but not a crazy martial arts movie."

Along with other locations in the Portland, Ore., area, St. Helens is standing in for the novel's Forks, Wash., locale, and it's doing a better job than anyone expected. While visiting the set last week, Godfrey admitted they needed the gloomy weather to be faithful to the book but weren't expecting such dramatic changes in the forecast.

"Within the same day we had sun, rain, sleet and hail," Godfrey says. "Last night we were shooting the prom scene and they are outside dancing and there is hail coming down."

As the night's shoot continues, a crowd of onlookers watches from a distance. It's unclear whether these are local residents, but according to Godfrey, no one would be surprised if they were hard-core fans who trekked to this remote town for a sneak peek -- especially because they've already come knocking on the actors' hotel room doors.

"Let's put it this way: I have done a movie with Will Smith and Jennifer Aniston, separately, and I've had more stalkers on this movie than either of those," Godfrey says. "It's crazy."

"Twilight" opens nationwide Dec. 12.

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