New Moon

Robert Pattinson is having an Obi-Wan Kenobi moment. Inside a soundstage where "The Twilight Saga: New Moon" is shooting, the lanky English heartthrob stands in front of a tall, wide green screen murmuring a tender admonition, "You promised me nothing reckless." Motion capture cameras hurtle toward him across a length of track affixed to the stage floor, while a team of technicians studies his stance and the tilt of his head.

Lions Gate Highest-grossing movies (worldwide ticket sales) 1. "The Expendables" -- $274. 5 million 2. "Fahrenheit 9/11" -- $222.4 million 3. "Saw III" -- $164.8 million 4. " Saw II" -- $147.7 million 5. "Saw IV"-- $139.3 million TV shows include: "Mad Men" "Weeds" "Nurse Jackie" "Tyler Perry's House of Payne" Management: CEO Jon Feltheimer and Vice Chairman Michael Burns ...

Darkness may be a visual effects artist's best friend, but his biggest enemy isn't bright sunlight -- it's the overcast day. So, adding all those CG werewolves to scenes shot in cloudy Vancouver, Canada, was a particular challenge for "New Moon" visual effects supervisor Phil Tippett and his team. "On a sunny day, you get really nice contrasts, but with flat lighting and a furry thing -- the fur really soaks up the light and everything appears flat," Tippett said. "So to make it appear three-dimensional, we had to goose reality.

The rocket and capsule that NASA is proposing to return astronauts to the moon would fly just twice in the next 10 years and cost as much as $38 billion, according to internal NASA documents obtained by the Orlando Sentinel. The money would pay for a new heavy-lift rocket and Apollo-like crew capsule that eventually could take astronauts to the moon and beyond. But it would not be enough to pay for a lunar landing or for more than one manned test flight, in 2021. That timeline and price tag could pose serious problems for supporters of the new spacecraft, which is being built from recycled parts of the shuttle and the now-defunct Constellation moon program.

Raunchy comedy "The Hangover" led nominations for the MTV Movie Awards, beating blockbusters "Avatar" and the "Twilight" vampire sequel "New Moon" into second place, MTV said on Wednesday. But "Twilight" stars Kristen Stewart, Robert Pattinson and Taylor Lautner dominated the contenders in the new global superstar category, while Betty White, 88, picked up a surprise mention in the usually youth-dominated awards. "The Hangover" had six nominations, including best movie, best villain (Ken Jeong)

Edward and Bella are set to take the second-biggest bite of the year out of the box office. "The Twilight Saga: New Moon" will probably sell about $90 million worth of tickets this weekend in the U.S. and Canada and could exceed $100 million, according to surveys of potential filmgoers, making it the second-largest debut of the year behind "Transformers: Revenge of the Fallen," which collected $109 million its first weekend. The first "Twilight" movie opened to $69.6 million on the same weekend last year.

It's a crisp May morning on the set of "The Twilight Saga: New Moon," and Michael Sheen strides into an elaborate reconstruction of an Italianate marble hall in costume as Aro, the head of the Volturi, a menacing group of age-old vampires that metes out justice in the realm of the supernatural. Dressed in a cloak, he's sporting long, black locks, bright red lips and matching tinted contact lenses that give him a distinctly malevolent look. When a reporter asks if it's uncomfortable to look through the eyes of a monster, he suggests, quite politely and quite to the contrary: "No, I think it's more uncomfortable for you."

It wasn't new and it wasn't in first place, but all eyes were on "The Blind Side" this weekend. Alcon Entertainment's uplifting football drama starring Sandra Bullock pulled off the rare feat of increasing ticket sales on its second weekend in wide release, nearly pulling off an upset and eclipsing "The Twilight Saga: New Moon" to become No. 1. It was an unusual weekend all around at the box office, as none of the three new nationwide motion...

"This is the last time you'll ever see me," Edward Cullen says to Bella Swan. As if. Spoken early on in "New Moon," that promise is one of the least likely to be kept in movie history. With most of that film still to unfold, and two more adaptations of Stephenie Meyer's "Twilight" series in the works, the next due out as soon as next summer, the world is going to see as much of Kristen Stewart's melancholy Bella and Robert Pattinson's undead Edward as it can take. Maybe more. In the short term, however, Edward is as good as his word and "New Moon" suffers as a result.

Westwood Village has entered the "Twilight" zone. The U.S. premiere of "New Moon," the latest movie installment in the "Twilight" vampire saga, is set for Monday at Mann's Village Theatre and Bruin Theatre, and fans have invaded the sidewalks hoping to get a glimpse of the cast. First in line was Alison Genet, 35, who drove from Gilbert, Ariz., arriving Thursday morning. "I couldn't get here fast enough," said Genet, who runs the social networking site www.twifans.com.

Raunchy comedy "The Hangover" led nominations for the MTV Movie Awards, beating blockbusters "Avatar" and the "Twilight" vampire sequel "New Moon" into second place, MTV said on Wednesday. But "Twilight" stars Kristen Stewart, Robert Pattinson and Taylor Lautner dominated the contenders in the new global superstar category, while Betty White, 88, picked up a surprise mention in the usually youth-dominated awards. "The Hangover" had six nominations, including best movie, best villain (Ken Jeong)

The Princess and the Frog Walt Disney, $29.99; Blu-ray, $39.99/$44.99 Walt Disney Animation Studios returns to traditional hand-drawn animation with "The Princess and the Frog," an update of the fairy tale classic that has the royalty turning amphibian instead of vice versa. The story lurches to a start, but once "princess" Tiana (who's actually a waitress in 1920s New Orleans) undergoes her transformation and joins her "prince" in the bayou, the movie livens up considerably, aided by jaunty Randy Newman songs and a vivid color palette.

At first blush, the heroines of the films "Precious," "New Moon" and "The Lovely Bones" seem to have little in common -- except that they all started out as characters in novels. Precious is an abused, teenage mother who can barely read. "New Moon's" Bella is a vampire-in-waiting who lives to be courted by a glittering heartthrob of the undead. Susie, the narrator of "The Lovely Bones," is the product of the kind of suburban idyll for which Kodachrome was invented. Yet despite these diverging narratives, these girls are deeply, sweetly ordinary.

Estimated sales in the U.S. and Canada: Movie (studio) 3-day gross (millions) Percentage change from last weekend Total (millions) Days in release 1 Avatar (Fox/Dune/Ingenious) $73 NA $73 3 2 The Princess and the Frog (Disney) $12.2 -50% $44.8 26 3 The Blind Side (Warner Bros.

After surmounting technological hurdles, and with an investment of about $430 million at stake, "Avatar" may have met an obstacle it can't overcome: snow. According to people following ticket sales, the highly anticipated 3-D science fiction epic film was on course to gross between $25 million and $30 million Friday alone. That would put the James Cameron-directed movie on a path to hit roughly $80 million in ticket sales by Sunday, which is in line with projections based on public surveys going into the weekend.

Fiction 1. The Girl With the Dragon Tattoo by Stieg Larsson ($14.95) 2. The Piano Teacher by Janice Y. K. Lee ($15) 3. Olive Kitteridge by Elizabeth Strout ($14) 4. The Elegance of the Hedgehog by Muriel Barbery ($15) 5. Twilight by Stephenie Meyer ($10.99) 6. Push by Sapphire ($13) 7. The Private Patient by P. D. James ($15) 8. The Guernsey Literary and Potato Peel Pie Society by Mary Ann Shaffer and Annie Barrows ($14)

It must be terrifying to know that fame, like a giant, all-consuming tidal wave, is about to break over you at any moment. But if Taylor Lautner's scared, he's not showing it. In fact, the 17-year-old star of "The Twilight Saga: New Moon," which opens in theaters at midnight Thursday, seems a little too calm. When talking about his starring role as Jacob Black in the follow-up to last year's box office breakout "Twilight," he exudes an effortless boy-next-door charm. His demeanor, though somewhat guarded, is more small-town high school football star than newly minted teen heartthrob.