Robert and Kristen: smoking and drinking?

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Apparently Robert and Kristen sneaked away from their pals to do a little smoking an drinking!  Uh-oh, are they addicts?  Click HERE to find out...

Maria Salas reviews 'New Moon'

See pics from the 'Twilight: New Moon' premiere

Go behind-the-scenes of our 'New Moon' chat 

'New Moon' midnight showings earn record $26.3 mil

Kimberley French/Summit Entertainment

"The Twilight Saga: New Moon" has set a box-office record for midnight screenings.

Summit Entertainment estimated Friday that it earned $26.3 million after opening early in the morning.

That would topple the previous midnight record, held by "Harry Potter and the Half-Blood Prince." It earned $22.2 million this year. "The Dark Knight" from 2008 is third with $18.5 million.

"New Moon" is the second installment of the popular "Twilight" series. It opened at midnight in 3,514 theaters with a per-theater average of $7,476.

Paul Dergarabedian (der-gayr-uh-BEE'-dee-uhn) is a box-office analyst for Hollywood.com. He says the midnight start "portends an opening weekend that could be one of the biggest of the year."

Maria Salas reviews 'New Moon'

See pics from the 'Twilight: New Moon' premiere

Robert Pattinson & Taylor Lautner's new competition

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Exclusive from Life & Style Weekly

Like his New Moon character, Sam Uley, Chaske (pronounced Chess-kay) Spencer proved to be leader of the pack on set in Vancouver, British Columbia. "I was the older brother or father figure," he told Life & Style during an exclusive photo shoot with costar Charlie Bewley on Nov. 4 in LA. "I'm very protective of Taylor Lautner, Alex Meraz and Kiowa Gordon. We can get on each other's nerves, but it's just like a family." British export Charlie Bewley, who plays Volturi vampire Demetri, crossed the pond to make his big-screen debut in New Moon -- and life will never be the same! "I haven't really absorbed the whole thing," he admitted during Life & Style's exclusive New Moon shoot. "But I'm working out a rapid autograph style now. It's coming along nicely."

L&S: You and Taylor both gained 30 pounds of muscle. Did you hold weight-lifting contests?

Chaske Spencer: We were all really competitive and supportive of one another. One time, I had the highest score on this rowing machine, and the next day I came in and Rob [Pattinson] had beaten me -- he worked out at night, and the wolves came in during the day. I beat him again, but on the last day of shooting, I came in and he'd beaten me by a second.

L&S: Do people ever ask you to take off your shirt?

Chaske Spencer: All the time! Just seeing myself shirtless on the posters makes me very self-conscious. When the Twilight saga's over, I'm not going to the gym for a while.

L&S: This is your first movie. What was it like working with veteran Dakota Fanning?

Charlie Bewley: She's wonderful. The most impressive thing is the way she works the camera with her eyes. Dakota has a wonderful stillness for a 15-yearold actress. It's something most people don't master in a lifetime.

L&S: Do girls swoon over your accent, or are they unable to understand you?

Charlie Bewley: It's a bit of both. I've never been asked out by an American woman, though. The one physical commonality my girlfriends have had is that they have disproportionately large heads. It's kind of weird.

For more from the sexy new men of New Moon, pick up the new issue of Life & Style, on newsstands now.

LifeAndStyleMag.com. Used with permission. All rights reserved.

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Review: Bella mopes through pretentious `New Moon'

Kimberley French/Summit Entertainment

  Where would Hollywood be without that old standby, the vampire-werewolf-schoolgirl love triangle?

As every Stephenie Meyer fan knows, "The Twilight Saga: New Moon" is the one where studly vampire Edward Cullen (Robert Pattinson) dumps his human girlfriend, Bella Swan (Kristen Stewart), for her own safety, and she turns to old chum Jacob Black (Taylor Lautner) for solace, unaware that he's a werewolf, and therefore Edward's sworn enemy from way back.

What fans are about to find out is that critics, present company included, don't care much for this adaptation of the second in Meyer's "Twilight" series. And those fans won't give a fig what these critics have to say about their beloved Bella and her beastie boy toys.

They will turn out in blockbuster legions, teen girls in roving packs descending on theaters, along with ladies-night-out groups of friends and co-workers, and daughters with their moms (and plenty of grandmothers, no doubt).

With Chris Weitz ("American Pie," "About a Boy," "The Golden Compass") taking over as director, the second movie has exactly what those fans want: Big, bouncy boy hair. Sculpted torsos everywhere. Teasing caresses of fingers on fingers, lips on lips. Love so deep and frenzied the smitten would prefer to die than go on without the other. Torsos, did we mention torsos?

Most important, not just one, but two supernatural hunks snarling over the quivering carcass of a breathless, doe-eyed young woman.  Swoon factor times two.  For anyone who has not sworn the blood oath of undying allegiance to all things "Twilight," here's a few issues with "New Moon": It's really two half moons, or two halves of a movie that don't quite fit. Mopey teenage Bella has all the luster of, well, a mopey teenager. The real rivalry between the werewolves and vampires is to see which species can behave with greater preposterousness and pretension.

Finally, "New Moon" is boring, eternally so.  "Twilight" screenwriter Melissa Rosenberg returned to adapt the script, and "New Moon" shares its predecessor's brooding, diary-of-a-mad-girl tone.

Bella starts senior year in the worst way as Edward and his adopted family of sensitive new-age vampires pack up and move away.  Fans will rue the relatively scarce screen time for Pattinson, whose Edward still adores Bella but decides he has to break things off so he doesn't complicate their relationship by giving her a fatal hickey.  Months of pining and bad dreams eventually are eased for Bella as she starts hanging out with Jacob, who misses no opportunity to show off his Olympian pecs and abs.  Bella's timing stinks, though, because Jacob's just entering wolfman puberty. Suddenly, he's running with a pack of werewolf brethren in his American Indian tribe, and he pushes Bella away just as Edward did-for her own protection.

What's a girl to do? Mope some more.

Old vampire enemies are still preying on Bella, though, giving Jacob and his boys some bloodsuckers to fight. The visual effects of the guys transforming into wolves are disappointing, over in a flash; "An American Werewolf in London" did a much neater job of it almost 30 years ago.  Then "New Moon" veers back to the Cullens as Bella races to Italy to save Edward, who's become a world-class moper himself.  There, they engage in a showdown with the Volturi, who are sort of the A-listers of the vampire world and as full of themselves as any spoiled Hollywood star.  Chief among them is Aro (Michael Sheen, a werewolf in the "Underworld" franchise, so he swings both ways), whose smarmy little smile and prim bearing sap the menace he's supposed to convey.

Dakota Fanning, in a departure from her goodie-goodie persona, has a fleeting role as a Volturi bad girl.  As Edward's soothsaying vampire sister Alice, Ashley Greene provides more snap with a few choice lines than the leading players manage in the entire movie. The rest of the Cullen clan, including Peter Facinelli as patriarch Carlisle, are bit players this time, as are Bella's circle of human friends, though Anna Kendrick has some lively moments as school mate Jessica.  Billy Burke also is back as Bella's police-chief dad, though you have to worry about the townsfolk's safety, given all the scrapes his own daughter gets into under his watch.

The soap-opera melodrama of Stewart, Pattinson and Lautner's performances provides some unintentional laughs that lighten the movie's relentless gloom.  Yet Stewart is on screen almost all the time, and her Bella is just a drag to be around. With her flat speech and listless presence, it's unfathomable how two different sets of monsters could fixate so completely on her.  All three lovers are so joyless, it's hard to imagine why any of them would want to spend eternity together.

"The Twilight Saga: New Moon," a Summit Entertainment release, is rated PG-13 for some violence and action. Running time: 130 minutes. One and a half stars out of four.

Terra/AP

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"New Moon" poised for No. 1 box office bow

Promotional Still

Fans have been mooning over all things "Twilight" since the vampire-romance film bowed so bloody well exactly a year ago. So it's no surprise that the sequel, "The Twilight Saga: New Moon," is projected to sink its teeth into more than $85 million during its first weekend.

"New Moon" rises in 4,024 locations, beginning with 3,500 performances at 12:01 a.m. Friday.

Online ticketers said the Summit Entertainment sequel has run up the biggest advance sales of any film in history, with sellouts ensured for many showtimes throughout the weekend. Higher production values and the cast's growing celebrity should help "New Moon" broaden the fanged franchise's base of support from teens and tweens to daughter-and-mom combos and even single older females.

"We know who our audience is, and it's basically females of all ages," Summit distribution chief Richie Fay said. "But some of the TV spots are playing to young males, and we're getting some response to that."

Like "Twilight," "New Moon" is based on one of a series of books by Stephenie Meyer and is rated PG-13. Chris Weitz ("About a Boy") takes over directing duties for the sequel, and Taylor Lautner's werewolf-in-waiting character muscles aside Robert Pattinson's blood-sucking sulk for predominant screen time. A second book-based sequel, "The Twilight Saga: Eclipse," is scheduled for release June 30.

Produced for an estimated $37 million, "Twilight" unspooled with $69.6 million during its opening weekend and fetched $191.5 million domestically. That cumulative figure will rise a bit after Summit re-releases the first picture for one day only to help fuel interest in the sequel.

Some believe "New Moon" could flirt with the record set in July by Warner Bros.' "Harry Potter and the Half-Blood Prince," with $22 million in opening midnight coin. If that proves true, look for "New Moon" to threaten the magical $100 million mark through Sunday.

ON THE OTHER 'SIDE'

With the Summit sequel potentially drawing upon a diverse range of demographic groups, Warner Bros. might find it difficult to capture the attention of moviegoers who otherwise would be expected to support its sports-themed Sandra Bullock movie, "The Blind Side."

A coming-of-age tale that should resonate with younger audiences, "Blind Side" also targets older women, based on the appeal of its star. It remains to be seen whether young and older females alike will prove too preoccupied with the weekend buzz film to get behind Warners' lower-profile movie. Early reviews largely have been positive for "Blind Side," which is drawing a wide range of forecasts, as low as midteen millions to $20 million-plus.

Situated a bit more propitiously this weekend, the animated feature "Planet 51" has the tots-and-parents crowd pretty much to itself. Although Disney's 3D animated feature "A Christmas Carol" is likely to post a strong third session, prerelease tracking surveys suggest that marketing for the PG-rated "Planet" has taken hold, with awareness fairly high. An opening in the high-teen millions looks doable. Sony is distributing the film for Spain-based producer Ilion Animation.

Elsewhere, it will bear watching whether the vampire movie drains support from Sony's sci-fi action feature "2012," which opened to $65 million last weekend. But even a 60 percent drop would put "2012" north of $25 million in its sophomore session, giving the Roland Emmerich-helmed picture the weekend's silver-medal position.

Also this weekend, Lionsgate drama "Precious" expands to 600 or so theaters after two frames in more limited release. An early awards-season buzz title, "Precious" totes cumulative box office of $9 million and counting.

Terra/Reuters

See pics from the 'Twilight: New Moon' premiere

Go behind-the-scenes of our 'New Moon' chat 

Who's sexier: Robert Pattinson or Taylor Lautner?