‘The Host’ Premiere: Stephenie Meyer on Moving on From ‘Twilight’

At the premiere for The Host, the new sci-fi film based on Twilight author Stephenie Meyer’s latest book, gaggles of fans, some who had lined up hours earlier, screamed and shouted as the young stars walked by into the screening.

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While it may may feel like the Twilight fandom all over again, The Host is a different story, and for Meyer, a chance to move on.

“I can’t imagine that I’ll ever do an interview where someone doesn’t mention Twilight,” Meyer tells The Hollywood Reporter at the premiere on March 19. “I think it will follow me. I think there are good and bad things to that.”

“I hope that I’m able to do better things,” she adds. “While I’ll always have Twilight with me, I’ll grow and be a better writer.”

Meyer was involved with every step of the process for making The Host adaptation, from casting to production and post.

The story follows a small group of humans who are the last remaining survivors in Earth, which has been taken over by aliens (called “souls”) who use human bodies as their hosts. One human, named Melanie (Saoirse Ronan), is able to fight the soul who has taken over her body, and remains present and fighting to protect her remaining loved ones.

“When we started doing this, my first instruction with the casting was that I don’t care if they look like my description,” she says. “I cared that they were the best actors we can find and they feel like my characters.”

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Meyer tells THR that she had at first not considered Ronan, 18, for the lead because Melanie is a bit older in the book.

“I wasn’t thinking that young, but then once we really looked at what she could do and what no one else could do, I can’t picture anyone else in the role,” she says.

After the premiere at ArcLight Cinemas in Hollywood, Meyer joined the cast and director Andrew Niccol at Lure nightclub for a blue-themed afterparty. She tells THR she “found this one very easy to watch” compared to some of her other adaptations.

“I’ve seen it several times and I don’t feel like, ‘Oh I’m done.’ I still like watching it so I think that’s a good thing,” she says.

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Meyer reveals that she’s already working on the second book in The Host series, which would likely also be made into a film. While there have been reports that the franchise may be made into a trilogy, Meyer says she’s still unsure how many books there will be.

“I might wrap it up in two,” she says. “We’ll see if the story feels complete.”

“I need to get home and lock myself in a closet so I can get that done,” she adds. “I don’t know how to cut out all the interruptions because some of them are really important — like my kids.”

The Host hits theaters on March 29.

Email: Rebecca.Ford@thr.com; Twitter: @Beccamford