malco theaters

Summit Entertainment
Kristen Stewart and Robert Pattinson star in "The Twilight Saga: New Moon" which sold out at Memphis theaters.
In 1957 American-International Pictures released "I Was a Teenage Werewolf" in which Michael Landon portrayed an alienated youth suffering through a peculiarly hair-raising adolescence.
Today Landon wouldn't be so lonely.
Teenage werewolves and vampires aren't shunned but adored. Or to paraphrase the title of a 1979 song by the goth rock band Bauhaus: Bela Lugosi's dead but Robert Pattinson is hot!
Poll
Just ask 20-year-old Casey Byrd who took a vacation day from her job at a Lenny's Sub Shop in Marion Ark. to drive to the Malco Paradiso in East Memphis so she could be first fan in line Thursday for a midnight showing of "The Twilight Saga: New Moon" in which Pattinson plays a sexy vampire named Edward whose love for Bella (Kristen Stewart) a young mortal is challenged by rival supernatural stud Jacob (Taylor Lautner) a werewolf.
Actually there was no line for Byrd to be first in when she arrived at the theater at 10 a.m. After the Paradiso opened for business she loitered in the lobby subsisting on concession stand pizza until other "Twi"-fanatics joined her including friend Brittany Butler 20.
The women wore homemade T-shirts and hoodies adorned with such "Twilight"-inspired slogans as "And So the Lion Fell in Love with the Lamb ..." (an Edward reference) and "He Is My Sexy Beast!" (Jacob).
"I wanted to be the first" Byrd said. "I was the first last year" she added referring to "Twilight" the first film in the series which made its debut a year ago this weekend.
"New Moon" is the sequel to "Twilight" which grossed $191 million at the U.S. box office and $380 million worldwide. The films are adapted from a series of best-selling romantic-supernatural novels by Stephenie Meyer that have turned millions of readers most of them women into Twi-addicts.
"New Moon" was set to debut at 12:01 a.m. today on 3500 screens around the country including 27 in the Memphis area. All local shows were sell-outs; at the Paradiso some 2400 fans jammed the 10 screens showing "New Moon."
"Big city or small it doesn't matter that's how deep the phenomenon is" said Malco film booker Jeff Kaufman who said the "New Moon" midnight shows all sold out.
The fans at the Paradiso were mostly women ranging in age from pre-teenagers to fortysomethings and older. Many wore flashing "Bite Me!" buttons and other bits of Hot Topic "Twilight" apparel; many also wore homemade outfits that proclaimed their allegiance to "Team Edward" or "Team Jacob."
Some fans couldn't make up their minds. Nineteen-year-old Lizzie Gonzalez' shirt stated: "Heart Divided."
Although most fans said they were attracted by the romantic aspects of the books and films Erin Bowden 40 said the series proved therapeutic as well as escapist after the sudden death of her husband Andrew 36 from "a massive heart attack" last year.
"That whole thing of a love that will never die I could really understand it" said Bowden.
Most "Twilight" fans plan to be back for next summer's opening of the third film in the series "Eclipse."
Peterson Wellford 18 an MUS student who was one of the few men in attendance called to his friends: "I'll see you in June."

Article is originally from http://www.commercialappeal.com/news/2009/nov/19/twi-fanatics-make-new-moon-a-sellout/ and copyrighted unless stated otherwise.