The teenage years can, don’t we all know, be an alienating experience, even when you don’t have an actual alien trapped inside your body. But such is the fate of the spirited young heroine of The Host, who finds that talking to boys and stuff is a whole lot harder when your soul is being sucked by one of the space invaders slowly wiping humankind from the face of the planet. This extravagantly silly but undeniably entertaining sci-fi soap opera — the latest adapted from the work of Mormon YA-lit phenom Stephenie Meyer — should prove shrewd distaff counterprogramming to G.I. Joe: Retaliation, posting solid (if less-than-Twilight-sized) numbers at home and other points throughout the galaxy. more »
The Host author Stephenie Meyer is a sci-fi grrrl. Now that the Twilight creator is transitioning from vampires and werewolves to aliens, I asked her what it was like to work in the male-dominated science-fiction genre. "I grew up reading science fiction!" she told me. "There are many women out there reading science fiction and enjoying it — it's our genre too!" more »
It's the first day of spring and a perfect time to celebrate young love of the parasitic alien variety. And how do we do that? By giving away a prize pack for Open Road's adaptation of Twilight creator Stephenie Meyer's novel, The Host, to one budding poet out there who can capture the spirit of the movie in an original haiku. more »
Can aliens be bigger drama queens than vampires? Next spring will tell. With the last installment of The Twilight Saga opening this weekend, Summit Entertainment has begun priming Twi-Hards for its next Stephenie Meyer project, The Host, which hits the big screen on March 29. more »
Also in Thursday afternoon's round-up of news briefs, political drama Knife Fight is heading to U.S. theaters courtesy of IFC Films. Saoirse Ronan will headline a new royal role and Steve Pink is eyeing the director's chair for a remake of 1986's About Last Night.
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It's brief, but the newly debuted teaser trailer for the sci-fi romance The Host is here to tantalize you with images of freaky-eyed pod people and star Saoirse Ronan's fierce, unearthly qualities. Adapted from author Stephenie Meyer's non-Twilight novel about a human and an alien symbiote who share the same body, The Host is headed to theaters in 2013 under director Andrew Niccol (In Time), and while this oughta give Host readers a twinge of anticipation, non-fans are likely scratching their heads wondering what Ronan's eyeballs and the vaguely Benetton-like reel of faces has to do with anything.
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Upstart distributor Open Road has set a date for Andrew Niccol's big screen adaptation of The Host, Twilight author Stephenie Meyer's best-selling sci-fi tale of a young woman (Saoirse Ronan) and the body-snatching alien "soul" who takes over her human form. The pic will open on March 29, 2013 -- Easter weekend -- and begins shooting next February. [Deadline]
After being handpicked by Stephenie Meyer to adapt her Twilight follow-up, the body-snatching romance The Host, Andrew Niccol has also been set to direct. With filming completed on the Amanda Seyfried-Justin Timberlake flick Now, Niccol can soon shift his focus to The Host, which will star Saoirse Ronan as human Melanie Stryder and the alien parasite who comes to inhabit her body. It's all coming together! [Deadline]
Big news for Stephenie Meyer fans: The bestselling author's Twilight follow-up, The Host, has found its onscreen lead. Deadline reports that 17-year-old Saoirse Ronan (Hanna, Atonement) will play opposite herself in the Andrew Niccol-penned adaptation of Meyer's sci-fi/romance novel about an alien named Wanderer who takes over the body of earthling Melanie Stryder, only to discover that her human host's own memories and emotions affect her.
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In this week's Hanna, 16-year-old knife enthusiast Saoirse Ronan joins the illustrious ranks of the lethal young women who've taken up arms (or fangs, or machine gun-arms) in the movies in the name of raining down righteous fury upon their enemies. Whether raised as assassins or transformed by tragic circumstance, these ten adolescent girls and teens don't take crap from anyone -- and they have the combined body count to prove it. If you run into any of these fierce misses in a darkened alley, let's hope they're on your side.
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BAFTA-winning director Joe Wright could have stuck to his bread-and-butter area of expertise, the lush period drama, a domain in which his films have notched multiple Academy Awards just six years into a feature filmmaking career. But after making Pride & Prejudice, Atonement, and the subsequent misfire The Soloist, Wright flipped the script and re-teamed with the teenage actress he'd previously directed to an Oscar nomination -- 16-year-old Saoirse Ronan -- on Hanna, a dizzyingly kinetic action film about a girl assassin on a mission of self-discovery.
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Sixteen-year-old Saoirse Ronan earns her action star stripes this week as the titular assassin of Joe Wright's thriller Hanna, a hyper-charged, globe-trotting fairytale about a feral teen sent out into the world on a mission of vengeance. With an infectious score by the Chemical Brothers to punctuate her journey, Ronan fights through droves of enemies with a fierce precision that belies her youth and petite stature -- and, as Hanna discovers friendship for the first time in her life, so too does Ronan convey a blend of preternatural maturity and childlike naiveté rarely found in performers her age.
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In San Francisco to present his upcoming teen assassin thriller Hanna at WonderCon, director Joe Wright threw a few pointed barbs toward Zack Snyder's Sucker Punch, calling out the film's brand of scantily clad feminism. Speaking exclusively with Movieline, Wright elaborated on the subject, tracing the "alarming" brand of sexually-exploitative girl power found in Sucker Punch back to the Spice Girls.
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As the YA-addicted world awaits the conclusion of The Twilight Saga, internet storms are a-brewin' over the next teen franchise with Twilight-level potential: Suzanne Collins' Hunger Games trilogy. But with casting speculation at a fever pitch (director Gary Ross should anoint his chosen ones any week now), it's time for some real talk: Most of your favorite young thespians aren't going to make the cut.
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