In Stephanie Meyer's The Host, love between two of the few remaining humans on Earth tries to survive amid an invasion by body-snatching aliens.

YouTube

he trailer: The Twilight saga finally comes to an end this week with the release of Twilight: Breaking Dawn Part 2 — but fear not, Twi-hards: There's still one last novel in author Stephenie Meyer's canon. Meyer's 2008 book The Host, which tells the story of a dystopian Earth in which body-snatching aliens have replaced most of humankind, is due for its own big-budget adaptation in March 2013. (Watch the trailer below.) "This is the beginning of a love story, and that may not seem like a big deal — except for one thing: This is the future, and humanity is all but extinct," says Saoirse Ronan in the trailer, which focuses on the romance between Ronan's character and costar Max Irons before an alien takes over her body. Will The Host be another Twilight-sized hit?

The reaction: The Host isn't as stunningly popular as the Twilight novels, says Natalie Zutter at Crushable, but "the book still has a healthy following — and I think they'll be impressed with the first trailer," which seems to be "treating Meyer's material seriously." But that's not necessarily a good thing, argues Kevin Jagernauth at Indiewire: "This looks as mediocre as expected," offering yet another supernatural tween romance from Meyer "in brand new packaging." This trailer is obviously designed "to net the Twilight crowd," saysBrendon Connelly at Bleeding Cool, but there's a good chance that director Andrew Niccol — who has helmed other futuristic films like Gattaca and The Truman Show — has beefed up The Host's thriller aspects enough to make it palatable to viewers not yet won over by Meyer's unmistakable storytelling style.