New Moon Round-Up: Kristen Stewart's 'Truth Machine,' Twilight House For Sale

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About 79 hours remain before New Moon makes its midnight debut, which can only mean navigating a steady torrent of related news as the hype flood swirls around us. Find below a few of the more compelling subplots to consider as you prepare for zero-hour:

· Kristen Stewart isn't aloof, reports the NYT -- she's just guarding herself against the horrors of abject teen stardom. To that end, says her Into the Wild director Sean Penn, she's a "truth machine" who admirably endures public scrutiny that would be "an obscenity on anybody's life." Stewart herself looks forward to the film's mall tour with the reassuring observation: "[T]hey could totally assassinate me at any time if they wanted. When so much energy is thrown at you, it has to throw you for a loop." Great. This may be the first time Kevlar is added to a tour rider.

· If you've got $3 million lying around and you want to shatter a salad bowl in the same kitchen where the Cullen family bloodlusted after Bella in Twilight, it's your lucky day: The original Cullen house outside Toronto is now for sale. It wasn't used in New Moon, apparently, and the smells of pancake makeup and mousse have faded almost entirely since the residence's halcyon days in early 2008. But it's there if you want it.

· So how much money will New Moon make this weekend, anyway? Depends whom you ask: Fandango sent another one of its inane newsletters proclaiming New Moon the biggest advance-ticket seller ever, beating Star Wars: Episode III: Revenge of the Sith for the top spot. Nevertheless, it would corroborate the slightly more scientific tracking data passed along by Jeff Wells, who reports New Moon scoring a "24 unaided awareness, an 84 total awareness, 46% of the totals definitely interested and a 26 first choice open & release." Translated, that's not far below where 2012 was at this time last week, and we all saw how lucratively that played out. And 2012 didn't have crowds camping outside the theater for days beforehand either.

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· The real Forks, Washington, is on an exploitation tear, naming everything from gift stores to theme restaurants after elements stolen from The Twilight Saga. No cease-and-desist letters have yet been issued, but just wait until Summit's lawyers find out about the hunting store marketing its new line of high-caliber rifles as Truth Machines™.

· Screenwriter Melissa Rosenberg admitted to the L.A. Times that she had major apprehensions about how the "500-pound gorilla" and source novelist Stephenie Meyer might meddle with her vision for Twilight. Surprise! They got along just fine in the end. Meanwhile, Meyer today gave Oprah Winfrey the sizzling scoop that the book New Moon originally had a different ending. Must! Credit! Oprah!

[Kristen Stewart photo: Eamonn McCormack/WireImage; Forks photo: The Wrap]



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