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Today's Hot Trailer: The Host Replaces Vampire Love with Alien Love

The only way to properly send off one massively popular movie franchise is to start another.

The Twilight Saga comes to a close this weekend with the release of Breaking Dawn Part 2, so where will the fanbase turn for more fantastical love triangles between beautiful young characters from completely different worlds? Twilight author Stephenie Meyer is hoping that fans look no further than the upcoming adaptation of The Host, based on her novel of the same name. All Meyer and writer-director Andrew Niccol (In Time) will have to do is sell Twilight fans on a sci-fi story that involves humanity being possessed by invading alien "souls," while still utilizing a tragic central character who has two men in love with her. Should be easy. After all, if Meyer can create a rabid franchise by dabbling in the world of vampires and werewolves, why can't she find the same success in the world of parasitic alien creatures who take over human souls?

OK, so maybe The Host is a trickier sell than Twilight. While Twilight took on familiar creatures (albeit rewriting the folklore rules along the way), The Host requires audiences to understand that humanity has been mostly possessed by aliens. The story follows Melanie (Saoirse Ronan) who falls in live with Jared (Max Irons) only to become possessed by a Soul named the Wanderer, who can't gain complete control of Melanie's mind. Enter Ian (Jake Abel), who falls for Wanda, while Melanie is still in love with Jerad. Meanwhile, Melanie's uncle Jeb (William Hurt) is leading the human resistance and thinks Melanie — and Wanda — are the key to discovering how Souls can be extracted from humans. What a giant pickle!

Decidedly darker than Twilight, Meyer spoke proudly of The Host when she introduced some footage for it as a surprise closer for the Breaking Dawn Part 2 panel at the San Diego Comic-Con. The latest trailer reveals some of the footage shown at Comic-Con and offers a more detailed look at the movie than the teaser trailer that was released in March.