This is the master post for all things mentioned about The Host today in reference to what is going down at San Diego Comic Con (SDCC). Rather than make a bunch of little posts, you can just come to this one and see what is being said and done.
Update July 27: Access Hollywood‘s red carpet interview with Stephenie Meyer at SDCC. Meyer discussing The Host begins at about 2:57.
Update July 26: Yahoo! Movies released their interview with Andrew Niccol and Stephenie Meyer from SDCC.
Update July 20: Someone posted the introduction to The Host footage featuring Stephenie Meyer and Andrew Niccol. This is the only video that I have found that gives us the best look at what went down sans the footage. Hopefully, someone will be brave and post it. I hear the Breaking Dawn seven minute footage is now on Youtube.
Source: Youtube, The Host Brazil
Stephenie Meyer did an interview with Josh Horowitz live on the internet for MTV’s Breaking Dawn special. She did an almost ten minute interview. MTV will be putting up a link to the interview soon, which I will embed here when it becomes available.
Stephenie talked briefly about what we might expect at the Hall H panel today, but had a sly “no comment” in reference to what was going to be shown or revealed about The Host.
In the Breaking Dawn press conference, Stephenie had this to say about The Host: The Host was a cleanser for me. There’s nothing coming out soon in that series, book wise. As far as the movie goes, it’s beautiful. via @hypablelive
**Well, as the Breaking Dawn panel was ending and most people stopped tweeting and live blogging, Stephenie Meyer brought director Andrew Niccol on stage to introduce a rough 5 minute or so clip from the film. It seemed like only a handful of people kept discussing what was going on. From what I have gathered it showed Melanie and Wanderer. Melanie sounds like an echo in Wanderer’s head/Melanie’s body. William Hurt is also in the clip.
TwilightMoms tweeted that Stephenie said there won’t be a The Host sequel for years. Does that mean film or book?
Empire Magazine tweeted: “The Host footage, though rough, was actually stylish and sleek in a very GATTACA way. Funny that, given the director…”
Full write up of what was seen in the footage at Coming Soon.net. Excerpt below:
“The footage they showed, not unlike Breaking Dawn, began with Saorise Ronan’s character opening her eyes to reveal an inhuman coloration. She’s in some kind a facility and has just been taken over by an alien life force. Diane Kruger’s character (also taken over) talks to her and reveals that most of Earth has been invaded and that human bodies are conquered and controlled. This new girl was formerly a famous resistance fighter and she needs the alien inside her to probe her memories.
The scene turns to a series of flashbacks with, in each shot, much of the frame blurred. Ronan explains that the girl was named Melanie Stryder and that she managed to escape the early wave of attacks on Earth. We see a home in Louisana where Melanie’s father kills himself rather than let his body be taken by men in all-white suits with white ties.
When the alien in her body reveals that she has a brother, Melanie’s personality fights back in her head, furious that her own mind is being used against her.
We see the story progress and Melanie go on the run with her brother and Max Iron’s character. There’s also a scene of Irons and Ronan making out against the side of a trailer.
A (presumably later) scene has the inhabited-Melanie being led to a cave in a series of desert mountains. There are men there that want to kill her because they don’t trust the alien within her, but William Hurt’s character (dressed like a grizzled cowboy) comes in with a shotgun and stops them.
A final scene shows a caravan of still-human people moving in trucks down a highway. They’re stopped by a helicopter (the body of which is completely covered in mirrors) and then pursued by cars of a similar design. There’s gunfire and the trucks finally pull over, but two of the drivers decide to crash into a wall rather than let themselves be taken. The footage cuts just as they’re about to collide.”
Slashfilm also has a write-up about the footage shown. I especially like this part:
“In all, the footage from The Host definitely looks like an Andrew Niccol film, though a few things (the voice over, and the makeout in the rain) feel a bit outside his usual tactics. This all looks like stronger, better-shot material than In Time was, and Ronan is such a convincing screen presence that she might be able to overcome some of Stephenie Meyer’s cheese in a way that the cast of Twilight never quite could.”
So what does the reigning Twilight queen, Ms. Kristen Stewart, think about the footage? According to Marc Malkin of E! : “Kristen Stewart just watched Host footage at Comic-Con. A source says she told Meyer & Niccol, ‘That was insane! That was f–king sick.'”
Fandango has an exclusive interview with Stephenie Meyer and Andrew Niccol talking about The Host. Andrew Niccol discusses adapting the book into a screenplay, which he has never done before. They also touch on how the Souls are distinguished from the humans and how Saoirse Ronan plays two roles in one body. VERY COOL how Melanie’s part was recorded beforehand and Saoirse then had that playing in her ear to act out the body of Wanderer. They also discuss sequels and possible Twilight stars cameos.
EW just released their video with Adam B. Vary interviewing both Stephenie Meyer and Andrew Niccol about The Host. The video is not embeddable, so you will have to head over to the webpage to see it. The interview is over five minutes long. Andrew Niccol discusses the use of chrome, which we have seen on those crazy cars that the Seekers drive. Stephenie discusses choosing Andrew Niccol as the director. Stephenie also touches on writing the next book for The Host. Here are three screen grabs from the interview, but please watch the video over at EW.
Official Portrait from EW:
Thanks to tweets from Francisca Rojas, Malicious Mandy, TwilightMoms, Empire Magazine.
Images below:
Images from panel courtesy of: Persephone Redaj
