After being the first outlet to report that M.I.A. had delivered her baby and would not be performing at this year’s 81st Academy Awards, HitFix can now exclusively confirm that Robert Pattinson will be presenting an award during this year’s telecast.

The “Twilight” star had long been rumored to appear on Hollywood’s biggest night, but barring any unforeseen last minute conflicts, he’ll be giving the franchise’s legion of fans something to look forward to on Oscar Sunday.

Still unclear is whether Pattinson’s “Twilight” co-star Kristen Stewart will also appear on the telecast and what award he will specifically present. And, obviously, speculation will now run rampant on who Pattinson’s date down the red carpet will be.

Pattinson rose to super-stardom after being chose to play the dreamy vampire Edward Cullen in “Twilight.” The first in a series of big screen adaptations of Stephenie Meyer’s popular book series, “Twilight” astounded the industry by raking in $188 million domestically and $357 million worldwide.

The 22-year-old Brit will appear later this spring as Salvador Dali in the indie drama “Little Ashes.” He’s expected to begin production next month on the “Twilight” sequel, “New Moon” which will be released Nov. 20.

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Today, while speaking with Regent Releasing’s Theatrical Marketing Manager, Bryan Westbrook, about the 2009 promotion schedule for Little Ashes, he asked if we would like to break the news about a certain Little Ashes star taking the cover of a major magazine.

Of course we would!

The April edition of the magazine, GQ , will be featuring Robert Pattinson on its cover, to promote the March 27, 2009 release of Little Ashes. Fantastic news for Robert as well as everyone who had a part in the making of this film. Be looking for the issue mid-March to read more about Rob and Little Ashes!

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Let me know what you think!

Now that’s buying power.

A female-dominated audience drove Twilight’s opening weekend to among the biggest in Hollywood history: a $70.6 million Friday-Sunday gross, per studio estimate.

“This is a game-changer. This is an industry-changing performance,” Exhibitor Relations analyst Jeff Bock said today. “…With the success of Sex and the City, and Mamma Mia!, we’ve awoken a sleeping giant at the box office.”

Exit polling showed 75 percent of Twilight’s audience was female. Box-office stats show the movie is the biggest opener for a movie directed by a woman (Catherine Hardwicke).

The vampire romance also played well to the young—overall, 55 percent of ticketbuyers were under age 25.

More Twilight factoids, sequel news and other highlights from the weekend box office after the jump:

* Going into the weekend, Twilight was expected to make, at best, a big $60 million. Where did the extra $10 million come from? Word of mouth, said Summit Entertainment distribution president Richie Fay, who talked of teen girls catching the Friday midnight screenings, and then deciding they had to see the movie again—and again. “It turned out they really liked the movie,” Fay said.
* Of the top 30 openers of all-time, of which Twilight is now one, only seven cost less than $100 million to produce. And only one, The Passion of the Christ, cost less than the $35 million Twilight.
* If Harry Potter and the Half-Blood Prince had opened Friday, which, as its fans can attest, it didn’t, then Twilight would have opened in December, and, Bock thinks, it would’ve opened smaller. With Potter around, he said, Twilight “just wouldn’t have had the opportunity to open on as many theaters.”
* Thanks to Twilight, Hugh Jackman’s unbeloved Van Helsing is no longer the top-opening vampire movie of all-time, per the stats at Box Office Mojo.
* Twilight didn’t just sell tickets; it sold tickets fast. At one point Friday, Fandango reported selling five Twilight tickets per second. (Fandango and E! Online are both owned by Comcast.)
* So, when’s the sequel opening? Fay said he guessed an official announcement, detailing a release date and principle players, could come this week.
* For movies that weren’t on Team Edward, dethroned champ Quantum of Solace ($27.4 million) and the debuting Bolt ($27 million) did okay.
* On the upside, the latest James Bond is making money faster than the last James Bond, Casino Royale. Quantum’s already made $109.5 million domestically.
* On the downside, the new Bond is fading faster than the last Bond. Casino Royale only fell off 25 percent in its second weekend compared to Quantum’s nearly 60 percent plunge.
* Slumdog Millionaire is the one weekend movie that outdid Twilight. The India-set fantasy averaged an apparently weekend-best $31,063 at each of its 32 theaters.

Here’s a recap of the top-grossing weekend films based on Friday-Sunday estimates compiled by Exhibitor Relations:

1. Twilight, $70.6 million
2. Quantum of Solace, $27.4 milliion
3. Bolt, $27 million
4. Madagascar: Escape 2 Africa, $16 million
5. Role Models, $7.2 million
6. Changeling, $2.6 million
7. High School Musical 3: Senior Year, $2 million
8. Zack and Miri Make a Porno, $1.7 million
9. The Boy in the Striped Pajamas, $1.67 million
10. The Secret Life of Bees, $1.3 million

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What does he like about being Edward Cullen? ‘You never have a hair out of place’.

Come to think of it, you might also find it hard to believe that Robert Pattinson wants to be your president. Or that he hasn’t kissed a girl in ages. Or that he secretly longs to “do” Jessica the cheerleader.

To celebrate the arrival of Stephenie Meyer’s vision to movie theaters, we present our most recent and most revealing interview with one of the newly minted Sexiest Men Alive. To some, he’s RPattz. To others, he’s Spunk Ransom. But to true Twilighters, he’ll always be the most charmingly self-deprecating and immensely talented vampire we’d ever want to watch on the big screen.

MTV: You were a big hit with the crowd at the “Spoilers” taping. When you told the audience to “shut up,” they loved it.

Robert Pattinson: [Laughs.] Good!

MTV: After all this time, “Twilight” is finally coming to theaters. We know you’ve been working on it all year. So how has your life changed, personally and professionally, over the past 12 months?

Pattinson: I’ve been so busy compared to last year, [when] I wasn’t busy at all. It’s very strange constantly working, doing various things, and that’s basically how my life’s changed. Professionally, I guess, I’m vaguely more commercially viable, so people want to have meetings with you instead of not wanting to have meetings with you. That’s kind of the basic difference.

MTV: What are your top five reasons why it’s great to be Edward Cullen?

Pattinson: Well, you can kiss Kristen Stewart. You can drive a Volvo. You can hold yourself back from killing people, which is always handy. Five reasons? You have a great peacoat, and you never have a hair out of place.

MTV: Well done! In the movie, we hear a little bit of your music, and the Twilighters know how much you love music in real life. Will we ever get a proper Robert Pattinson album?

Pattinson: I think if I did it, I’d do it under a different name and not promote it.

MTV: Spunk Ransom, perhaps?

Pattinson: [Laughs.] Maybe I could just do it under “Edward Cullen,” and we’ll see what happens.

MTV: I think they’d catch on.

Pattinson: That would be pretty obvious. [Laughs.] But, uh, maybe? I don’t like to look like I’m cashing in on stuff, so I probably won’t do it for a while. But I’m not really interested in having a music career. I don’t care if people buy my stuff or not.

MTV: When we showed the big kiss scene at the MTV “Spoilers” taping, there were audible gasps from the audience. We wanted to ask: How do women react in real life when you try to kiss them?

Pattinson: Um, I can’t really remember. [Laughs.] I haven’t kissed anybody in ages. I don’t remember. I don’t even remember how Kristen reacts in the thing. She’s just kind of, like, blank, right? She’s just like, “Why are you being so slow?” So, I don’t know. Normally? I have no idea.

MTV: Well, once “Twilight” comes out, you might find yourself with a few volunteers for getting over the I-haven’t-kissed-anybody-in-a-while problem.

Pattinson: Yeah. It’s funny. You would have thought that doing this movie — and I’m supposed to be such an attractive guy or whatever — would open up the floodgates for lots of 15-year-olds to come in. [Laughs.] But it has the converse effect, because everyone’s so, “Oh, everyone must be throwing themselves at you!” And it’s like, “No! Throw yourselves at me!”

MTV: So the next time you’re out in public, you want girls to throw themselves at you?

Pattinson: Yeah!

MTV: Wow, you just opened yourself up to a world of pain, my friend. Now, we have some questions from the fans here, if I could hit you with a few of these: Imagine you’re stuck on a deserted island. What three things do you bring — and is a girl one of those three items?

Pattinson: Yeah, I guess a girl would be a logical thing to bring. [Laughs.] That’s one of them. I’d bring a guitar — that sounds so cheesy. No, if I had a girl, I wouldn’t need a guitar. So I would bring maybe a little pad and a pen and a satellite phone.

MTV: Very useful!

Pattinson: Yeah, I’d just [call somebody and] leave.

MTV: Another fan contributed a question to the MTV Movies Blog, saying she’d read an interview where someone asked if you could be anybody who you’d want to be. And you said you wanted to be President Bush.

Pattinson: What?!

MTV: Did you ever say you wanted to be president? Would you want to run for president someday?

Pattinson: I would love to be president! Yeah, definitely. I want Schwarzenegger to change the [born-in-America requirement] from the inside.

MTV: What would you do as our president?

Pattinson: Nothing. [Laughs.] I’d just go around saying, “Kiss my ass!”

MTV: Are there any laws you’d want to pass?

Pattinson: No, not really. I’d just do really stupid stuff. I’d just be like, “Everyone needs to call me ‘sir.’ ” Actually, no, they call you Mr. President, right? I’d just want everyone to call me Mr. President. I’d just like to say, “Hey, I’m leader of the free world. What do you do, loser?”

MTV: OK, we’ll all start calling you Mr. President from now on. There are several romantic scenes in the movie, where you and Kristen are on the bed, on top of the tree, in the biology lab, stuff like that. What, in your opinion, is the most romantic moment that Edward and Bella share?

Pattinson: Hmmm … probably the scene in the hospital, when she’s in the hospital after the big fight. I like that scene. I think it’s quite honest.

MTV: So, to you, the essence of romance is honesty between people?

Pattinson: Yeah, definitely. [Especially] in that scene, because he’s saying, “You have to leave. You have to leave!” Just seeing how, sometimes, you’re not in control of yourself anymore [when you're in love]. There’s something more. Your emotions have transcended the reality of your lives, and I think that scene shows it.

MTV: If you woke up tomorrow and discovered you were a Forks High student, which “Twilight” character would you want to date?

Pattinson: I would probably date Bella. Bella is the coolest girl, you know? Well, it depends if it was from the movie or the book version. In the book version, I’d do — what’s her name? — Jessica. The cheerleader one.

MTV: I love how you said you’d “do” her.

Pattinson: [Laughs.] I’d do her, yeah. Take her? She’ll do.

MTV: OK, one last question from the fans: What do you have in your pockets right now?

Pattinson: [Rifling through pockets] A telephone and a wallet. Very uninteresting. Oh, and I have a pair of sunglasses.

MTV: Have you read the other “Twilight” books yet?

Pattinson: I’ve read the first three. I haven’t read the last one yet.

MTV: Is there a scene in “Eclipse” or “New Moon” that you’re particularly eager to shoot, if they make the sequels?

Pattinson: Yeah, I’m looking forward to doing the re-emergence in the second book, at the end of the second book, when he’s killing himself. I think that’d be kind of spectacular seeing that. And the second book is my favorite book, so I’m quite looking forward to doing it.

Robert Pattinson and Paramore frontwoman Hayley Williams sit down at Hollywood’s Velvet Margarita to sink their teeth into Myspace’s Artist on Artist.

The duo, who are featured on Twilight’s #1 soundtrack, interviewed each other about their experiences growing up, their passions and what was life before Twilight.

Hayley, 19, recently revealed that she has yet to finish the book series! She shared, “I’ve read the whole series, and I’m finishing up ‘Breaking Dawn’ right now, I’ve got five chapters to go. It’s tough, though! Now that I’m home, I’m so unfocused that I can’t sit down and finish it … but I’m going to before the film.”

Be sure to catch MySpace’s Artist on Artist, November 21st @ 1PM ET/PT

Pictures are here:

My computer crashed and I’m reinstalling everything. Updates are coming later tonight

View after the jump (it auto-plays)

I’ll post more videos/caps and pictures when I get home from work!

11 days left…

At Saturday’s “Twilight” extravaganza — otherwise known as a press junket — I was able to glean a few more tidbits about Robert Pattinson. Cheers!

Asked what he misses most about his pre-fame life, Rob said he already misses getting to play his music live: “I used to love playing live at open mic nights. It’d be cathartic. I mean it was really key for me,” he explained. Now that a few of his performances have been captured on YouTube, however, he’s a lot less keen to take the stage. In fact, he’s pretty sad about it. “I think, ‘Wow, I just lost a huge chunk of my life.’ ”

How did a once aspiring political speech writer get involved with acting? His dad saw some good-looking girls going to drama club and encouraged his son to sign up.

After having been described as an actor with the agility of “a mountain goat,” the actor revealed that shooting the baseball scenes didn’t go very well: “I’m not athletic. I just thought, ‘I don’t want to hit a ball with a stick anyway!’ ”

He’s not sure how, after he had refused to write music for “Twilight,” director Catherine Hardwicke got ahold of his songs. But he suspects co-star Nikki Reed snuck it off his laptop, where he keeps some of his music. (Hardwicke later told reporters that she was eventually able to convince him to record the songs and it was only after she showed them to him together with footage from the movie that he agreed to let them be used.)

Vampires are supposed to have perfect teeth; apparently producers didn’t think Rob’s were good enough. He was asked to use Invisaligns, but, you know, chose not to: “I lied to them for about two months. They were like, ‘Wow, That’s amazing. You can’t even see them!’ ” Also, it took him 20 minutes to get the vampire contacts in. “My eyes are super sensitive. I was always holding things up because it took forever to get them in.”

As part of his tortured take on Edward, Rob “never wanted Edward and Bella to touch.” That would be too painful for his character, he said. (Luckily, “Twilight” fans, he didn’t get his way.)

Come back tomorrow to read my extensive interview with Kristen Stewart, who reveals why she called her “Twilight” dialogue “corny” in the new issue of Entertainment Weekly, whether or not she wants to continue playing Bella in the sequels and why she’s passionate about acting.

Source | Denise Martin