The Year in New Moon: A Movieline Timeline

While the New Moon juggernaut arrives this week in a torrid, shirtless, wolfy blur, it didn't happen overnight. From the release of its first wolfcake images, through its historic Comic-Con panel, to its seismic world premiere, join Movieline now in retracing the making of a modern phenomenon.

April

· April 22: The mania kicks off with the first officially released photo, of the eternally shirtless wolf pack, leading us to coin the term "wolfcake" and describe the quartet of Canine American brothers as "a roving band of dreamy-eyed, Axe-body-spray-abusing lycanthropes who protect Bella from revenge-seeking vampiresses, while teaching her valuable lessons about the art of extreme manscaping."

· April 23: 30 Days of Night director David Slade is named director of the series's third installment, Eclipse.

May

· May 12: A New Moon script surfaces in St. Louis, fished out of a garbage bin at the airport. The culprit is widely believed to be Anna Kendrick, who was in town shooting Up in the Air. A rep claims the actress "wouldn't have left scripts lying around."

· May 13: An early review of the script suggests it's not that bad.

· May 19: The first poster is unveiled, in which Edward and Jacob press buttocks together in a potent visual representation of the girl who came between them.

· May 21: Twilight star Cam Gigandet battles armed and dangerous Twihards in a parody video.

June

· June 1: A trailer! A dinner party nearly goes horribly awry after Bella gets a paper cut. We get our first glimpse of what is to be many, many, many shots of Taylor Lautner without a shirt on. And a werewolf transformation!!! We need to take the day off.

· June 3: The trailer sets off a new round of New Moon hysteria, with obsessive freeze-frames scanning for Bella thongs and foreshadowings of wereshlongs to come.

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