Ready your blackest blacks. Find your most glitter-laden eye shadow. Apply that Pale Frightened Englishman shade of concealer you've been saving for a special occasion. As "Breaking Dawn - Part 2" hits theaters today Nov. 16, it's time to wave good bye to the storied saga of the Romeo and Juliet of the Hot Topic era. And while Twi-hards who've devoured the novels likely consider themselves prepared for the end of the series, author Stephanie Meyer says she expects the ending of the final "Twilight" film to shock everyone - even her biggest fans.
"It does feel very surprising. I still, watching it, have that (moment) where I go, 'Oh, oh, right. We did that, didn't we?' So definitely there's something new to see. But to me, it doesn't feel like it's going like hugely off the page at all," said Meyer, sitting between producer Wyck Godfrey and screenwriter Melissa Rosenberg during a recent news conference.
Before Meyer had even considered splitting "Breaking Dawn" into two films, Meyer and Rosenberg plotted the surprising conclusion for the franchise over dinner at a steakhouse.
"I wouldn't call it an alternate ending," said Meyer. "The end was something that we knew had to be cracked. And we sat there and hashed it out and ... in a way, I feel like it's kind of off screen in the novel because we only see what Bella sees. And this was just a way of making visual what some of the other characters might have been seeing."
"Part 2" picks up immediately where the previous film left off, with heroine Bella Swan (Kristen Stewart) experiencing her first moments as a newly transformed vampire. While her husband, Edward Cullen (Robert Pattinson), reintroduces her to his coven, Bella also reunites with her werewolf pal Jacob Black (Taylor Lautner) and meets the half-human/half-vampire daughter, Renesmee (Mackenzie Foy), she carried and birthed as a human.
"We looked at younger actresses, but you needed this person who could have meaningful conversations with her parents, who we would believe in these really hard scenes," Meyer said. "I think it turned out; the emotion is there."
"Because Renesmee is kind of supernaturally wise in some ways, having an actress who's 9 playing all the articulations of Renesmee from, you know, looking 6 months old 'til 10 was great because we could performance capture with her and then sort of de-age her on to kind of the proper scale. But it was challenging," added Godfrey.
Meyer isn't planning on slowing down any time soon; she's already got her next film lined up. The movie adaptation of her bestselling novel "The Host" will arrive in theaters in March 2013 starring Saoirse Ronan, Diane Kruger and William Hurt.
Beyond that, Meyer has no firm plans. And while the "Twilight" saga might have ended, she hints that she still might return to the characters eventually.
"I'm not into permanence, so I wouldn't say no absolutely. I'm not gonna do it today. I don't know how I'm gonna feel in five years," she said.
"I had planned out where it would go for a couple more books. So I know exactly what would happen. I mean, there are other characters that I think would've had a lot of voice in those coming stories. I don't know, maybe someday I'll write it out just for myself. We'll see."