After the success of Twilight last year, New Moon — the latest film adaptation of Stephanie Meyer’s book series — is one of the most hotly anticipated movies to be released this year. Leading the production is director Chris Weitz, who is taking his first stab at the franchise.

Q. How does it feel to take over directorial duties of such a successful franchise?

A. On the one hand, it’s exciting to take over a successful franchise. On the other, it’s daunting. There are so many fans who have high expectations for this film, but it’s made easy by the fact that I inherited this amazing cast who are certainly very talented. So half of the time, I’m just overjoyed to be a part of this and the other half, I’m nervous that I’m going to be hunted down and killed by a pack of 14-year-old teenage girls in about a year’s time!

Q. What was your reaction when you were first offered the job?

A. I was surprised because it happened very suddenly, and I had a week and a half to decide whether I was gong to do it or not. Then I saw the first film, I saw the case and I thought, 'This is going to be great, actually. Kristen, Rob and Taylor were great' - that’s what convinced me to do it. And I read the book and I thought I saw my way of making a good version of the book. It’s really a question of whether I can do justice to the book and to please the readers. That’s my job. It’s not to run away with it and just do my version of things. It’s to be faithful to their experience of reading it.

Q. “Twilight”, the first installment of the series, received some criticism for not being 100 per cent true to the book. Are you addressing some of these issues?

A. It’s impossible to be completely faithful to every single page of a book because movies don’t have enough time. So you end up cutting things and combining things. But I ...[next page]