Canadian October home sales dip, latest sign of cooling

TORONTO (Reuters) – Sales of existing homes in Canada fell in October from September and year-over-year sales were down as well, the Canadian Real Estate Association said on Thursday in the latest signal that the housing market is slowing.

The industry group for Canadian real estate agents said sales were down 0.1 percent in October from September. Actual sales for October, not seasonally adjusted, were down 0.8 percent from a year earlier.

The housing market, which roared higher in 2011 and the first half of 2012, started to slow after the government tightened rules on mortgage lending in July in a bid to cool the market and prevent home buyers from taking on too much debt.

“Housing market trends in Canada for 2012 can be characterized as before and after regulatory changes,” TD Economics senior economist Sonya Gulati said in a research note.

“In the first half of the year, sales and price gains were modest, but positive. More stringent mortgage rules and tighter mortgage underwriting rules have ‘purposely’ knocked the wind out of the housing market sails,” she said.

The home sales data showed diverging paths in Canadian housing depending on location. In Toronto and Vancouver, where sales and price gains were red hot in 2011 and early in 2012, the market has been cooling. But markets in the resource-rich western provinces of Saskatchewan and Alberta have been gaining strength.

“Opinions differ about how sharply sales have slowed depending on the local housing market,” Gregory Klump, CREA’s chief economist, said in a statement.

Led by Calgary, sales in October were up from a year earlier in almost two-thirds of local markets. Sales remained blow year-earlier levels in Toronto, Vancouver and Montreal, CREA said.

“These results suggest that the Canadian housing market overall has returned to a more sustainable pace,” Klump said.

CREA’s Home Price Index rose 3.6 percent in October from a year earlier, the sixth consecutive month in which gains in prices slowed, and the slowest rate of increase since May 2011.

While tighter mortgage rules have worked to slow the market, TD’s Gulati said the big question is what will happen when that temporary cooling effect wears off in early 2013.

“What happens thereafter is less certain. The low interest rate environment could pull homeowners back onto the market, causing home prices to once again trek upwards. Alternatively, an absence of pent-up demand may leave the market in a bit of a lull until interest rate hikes resume in late 2013,” she wrote.

“Under either scenario, it is safe to say that there is a low probability of out-sized home price gains over the near-term.”

A total of 402,322 homes traded hands via Canadian MLS systems over the first 10 months of 2012, up 0.8 percent from the same period last year and 0.4 percent below the 10-year average for the period, the data showed.

The number of newly listed homes fell 3.8 percent in October following a jump in September. Monthly declines were reported in almost two-thirds of local markets, with Toronto and Vancouver exerting a large influence on the national trend.

Nationally, there were 6.5 months of inventory at the end of October, little changed from the reading of 6.4 months at the end of September.

(Editing by Peter Galloway)

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Lindsay Lohan pushed for Elizabeth Taylor TV role

LOS ANGELES (Reuters) – Lindsay Lohan so wanted to play Elizabeth Taylor in the upcoming film “Liz & Dick” that she cut out the middle man and went straight to the producer herself, the tabloid-favorite star said in an interview on Friday.

Lohan, 26, plays Taylor in an upcoming television movie that dramatizes the long love affair between the late Hollywood legend and actor Richard Burton.

“It’s a funny story, actually. I had seen that they were going to be making the movie and I got the producers’ numbers and started harassing (producer) Larry Thompson,” Lohan said on ABC’s “Good Morning America.”

“I didn’t even care if my agents were going to do it or not, I just did it myself, too,” the “Mean Girls” actress said. “Because I was like, ‘No one else is going to play this role, I have to do this.’”

Early reviews of “Liz & Dick,” which premieres on U.S. cable channel Lifetime on November 25, have ranged from middling to poor. But TV critics noted the similarities between Lohan and Taylor, both often-troubled actresses who started life as child stars.

“‘Liz & Dick’ truly drags,” said the Hollywood Reporter. “Luckily, you can’t take your eyes off of Lohan playing Taylor, which the producers clearly thought would work because they share similar back stories.”

Lohan’s acting alongside New Zealand’s Grant Bowler as Burton was described by Variety on Friday as “adequate, barring a few awkward moments, thanks largely to the fabulous frocks and makeup … she gets to model.”

Lohan’s reputation, much like Taylor’s, has been built from her tabloid persona more than on-screen performance.

In and out of legal trouble, jail and rehab since 2007, Lohan faced media blow-back this week after canceling an in-depth interview with ABC’s Barbara Walters, who said she suspected the actress’ publicity team pulled the plug knowing Walters would ask tough questions.

(Reporting by Eric Kelsey; editing by Jill Serjeant and Matthew Lewis)

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Tulsa Town Hall: Nutrition a valuable tool in health care

Weil spoke as part of the Tulsa Town Hall series of speakers.

The United States has an expensive health-care system that doesn’t produce good results, he said.

“Something is very wrong with this picture,” he said. “We’re spending more and more and we have less and less to show for it.”

Changes in diet can be an effective treatment for many conditions, but American physicians are functionally illiterate in nutrition, he said.

“The whole subject of nutrition is omitted in medical education,” he said.

There are many ways of managing diseases other than drugs, he said. Integrative medicine, which can include dietary supplements and practices like meditation, is the future of health care, he said.

The health system is resistant to change because of entrenched vested interests. That includes pharmaceutical companies that do direct-to-consumer advertising, which should be stopped, he said.

“As dysfunctional as our health-care system is at the moment – and it is very dysfunctional – it is generating rivers of money,” he said. “That money is going into very few pockets.”

Weil has developed an anti-inflammatory diet based on the Mediterranean diet but with Asian influences.

Inflammation is associated with some heart disease, Alzheimer’s disease and some cancers, he said. And as a result, people should be eating real, unprocessed foods and whole grains. They should stay away from sugar-sweetened beverages, including fruit juice, he said.

“The new research that’s being done on sugar is not very comforting,” he said.

The aging process can’t be avoided, but age-related diseases can be avoided by proper care, he said.

“The goal should be to live long and well with a big drop off at the end,” he said.

Weil is the director of the University of Arizona’s Center for Integrative Medicine.

Tickets to the Tulsa Town Hall series are sold as a $ 75 subscription and cover five lectures. Tickets for individual lectures are not available.

To subscribe, visit tulsaworld.com/tulsatownhall, call 918-749-5965 or write to: Tulsa Town Hall, Box 52266, Tulsa, OK 74152.

Future speakers include journalist Ann Compton on Feb. 8; author James B. Stewart on April 5; historian and cinematographer Rex Ziak on May 10.

Original Print Headline: Speaker highlights nutrition

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Shannon Muchmore 918-581-8378
shannon.muchmore@tulsaworld.com
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Twinkies maker Hostess plans to go out of business

(Reuters) – Hostess Brands Inc, the bankrupt maker of Twinkies snack cakes and Wonder Bread, is seeking a U.S. court’s permission to go out of business after failing to get wage and benefit cuts from thousands of its striking bakery workers.

The 82-year-old Hostess, which has about $ 2.5 billion in sales and is one of the largest wholesale bakers and distributors of breads and snack cakes in the United States, filed the request with the U.S. Bankruptcy Court in New York early Friday morning. A hearing on the matter is set for Monday.

The Irving, Texas-based company said the liquidation would mean that most of its 18,500 employees would lose their jobs. Hostess immediately suspended operations at all of its 33 plants across the United States as it moves to start selling assets.

“We’ll be selling the brands and as much of the infrastructure as we can,” said company spokesman Lance Ignon. “There is value in the brands. But some bakeries will never open again as bakeries.”

Ignon said the company made final deliveries on Friday of products made on Thursday night. Hostess’s top-selling products are its chocolate cupcakes, Twinkies cakes and its powdered sugar and frosted “Donettes.”

Hostess products, particularly the golden, cream-filled Twinkies cakes, are deeply ingrained in American pop culture and have long been packed in school children’s lunch boxes. Entrepreneurs on auction site eBay Inc were asking as much as $ 100 for a box of 10 Twinkies on Friday morning.

Raj Patel, owner of Sarah’s Market in Cambridge, Massachusetts, said he was sorry to see the company go out of business.

“It’s been around for ages,” said Patel, 40. “A lot of people are familiar with the brand and it’s going to be tough for some people to do without.”

NOT INTERESTED IN BREAD

Hostess blamed heavy debt and burdensome wage and pension obligations for its financial woes. It said a strike by members of the Bakery, Confectionery, Tobacco Workers and Grain Millers International Union (BCTGM), which began November 9, was part of a long series of battles between labor and management that contributed to the company’s inability to restructure its finances and produce and deliver products at several facilities.

But union officials and line workers said union workers had already agreed to a series of concessions over the years and the company had failed to invest in brand marketing and modernization of plants and trucks and had focused instead on enriching owners such as private equity firm Ripplewood Holdings and hedge funds Silver Point Capital and Monarch Alternative Capital.

Officials at the three firms declined to comment.

“Our members decided… they were not going to agree to another round of outrageous wage and benefit cuts and give up their pension only to see yet another management team fail and Wall Street vulture capitalists and ‘restructuring specialists’ walk away with untold millions of dollars,” said BCTGM International Union President Frank Hurt.

Picketing workers echoed the sentiment.

“The people who are running this company are not interested in making bread,” said Roger Harrison, 56, who bags buns at the Hostess plant in Lenexa, Kansas, and has been with the company for 35 years.

“They are not in the baking industry; they are just interested in the money,” Harrison said.

The company had started implementing an 8 percent pay cut, a 20 percent increase in healthcare costs, and changes to pension and workday provisions when workers went on strike on November 9. Hostess had given employees a deadline to return to work on Thursday, but the union held firm, saying it had already given far more in concessions than workers could bear and that it would not bend further.

“The union has been the death of this company,” said a human resources manager who recently left Hostess.

LONG LABOR BATTLES

Hostess’s battle with its workforce has brewed for years. Formerly known as Interstate Bakeries Corp (IBC), the company for decades was based in Kansas City, Missouri. It filed for bankruptcy in September 2004 and emerged in 2009 with a host of employee concessions from various unions.

A source with knowledge of the situation who spoke on condition of anonymity said the company was well positioned when it emerged from bankruptcy in 2009, but the recession, a spike in commodity prices and consolidation of major competitors reshaped the landscape and forced more restructuring.

“We tried to get the senior creditors and the unions together and it dragged on and on and on and the company got weak,” said the source. “I’m still praying, literally, that something is worked out and they don’t liquidate the business.”

When Hostess filed for bankruptcy protection in January of this year the company said it must withdraw from multi-employer pension plans, address legacy health and welfare costs and secure new capital to modernize its operations.

The company has spent the last several months battling for wage cuts and other concessions from 12 unions representing Hostess workers. At one point earlier this year, Hostess had a potential outside equity investor lined up, but failure to gain pension relief from the International Brotherhood of Teamsters union killed that option, the company said in its court filing on Friday.

The company submitted offers to both the Teamsters and the bakery union in August, in what the company said was a final effort to save the company. The Teamsters accepted the proposal but the bakery union balked.

With court approval, Hostess implemented the contract changes in October. The bakery workers then launched strikes that disrupted operations at 24 bakeries. Hostess said the strikes were the final blow to the already “daunting obstacles” to reorganization.

The company’s court filing said that it hopes it can arrange the sale of groups of assets to be operated as going concerns.

WIND-DOWN PLAN

Hostess has 565 distribution centers and 570 bakery outlet stores, as well as the 33 bakeries. Besides Twinkies and Wonder Bread, its brands include Nature’s Pride, Dolly Madison, Drake’s, Butternut, Home Pride and Merita.

The company said in Friday’s court filing that it would probably take about a year to wind down. It will need about 3,200 employees to start that process, but only about 200 after the first few months.

Hostess had been gauging acquisition interest for certain brands for months and in late September received “a number of potentially viable proposals” to purchase certain assets.

Pabst Brewing Co owner, C. Dean Metropoulos & Co, is considering making an offer to buy Hostess Brands Inc, Daren Metropoulos, a principal at the private-equity firm, told Bloomberg News. Metropoulos did not return a request for comment.

SunTrust Robinson Humphrey analyst William Chappell Jr. said Flowers Foods Inc could be among the potential buyers for some Hostess assets. And he said the company’s liquidation was a “positive step” for the sector because it will reduce the number of major vendors.

In addition to Flowers, Bimbo Bakeries USA, a division of Mexico-based Grupo Bimbo, and Pepperidge Farm, a division of Campbell Soup Co, were considered prospective buyers, analysts said.

It is not a given that all of the better-known brands will survive, analysts said. “I’d be surprised if the Twinkies brand isn’t gone for good,” said Timothy Ramey, analyst at D.A. Davidson & Co.

The company has canceled all orders with its suppliers and said any product in transit would be returned to the shipper.

The company’s last operating report, filed with the bankruptcy court in late October, listed a net loss of $ 15.1 million for the four weeks that ended in late September, mostly due to restructuring charges and other expenses.

The case is In re: Hostess Brands Inc, U.S. Bankruptcy Court, Southern District of New York, No. 12-22052.

(Reporting by Carey Gillam in Kansas City and Jonathan Stempel in New York; Additional reporting by Tanya Agrawal in Bangalore, Ben Berkowitz, Nick Zieminski and Phil Wahba in New York; Editing by Lisa Von Ahn, Phil Berlowitz, Andre Grenon, Tim Dobbyn and Carol Bishopric)

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Jamaica to abolish slavery-era flogging law

KINGSTON, Jamaica (AP) — Jamaica is preparing to abolish a slavery-era law allowing flogging and whipping as means of punishing prisoners, the Caribbean country’s justice ministry said Thursday.

The ministry said the punishment hasn’t been ordered by a court since 2004 but the statutes remain in the island’s penal code. It was administered with strokes from a tamarind-tree switch or a cat o’nine tails, a whip made of nine, knotted cords.

Justice Minister Mark Golding says the “degrading” punishment is an anachronism which violates Jamaica’s international obligations and is preventing Prime Minister Portia Simpson Miller‘s government from ratifying the U.N. convention against torture.

“The time has come to regularize this situation by getting these colonial-era laws off our books once and for all,” Golding said in a Thursday statement.

The Cabinet has already approved repealing the flogging law and amendments to other laws in the former British colony, where plantation slavery was particularly brutal.

The announcement was welcomed by human rights activists who view the flogging law as a barbaric throwback in a nation populated mostly by the descendants of slaves.

“We don’t really see that (the flogging law) has any part in the approach of dealing with crime in a modern democracy,” said group spokeswoman Susan Goffe.

But there are no shortage of crime-weary Jamaicans who feel that authorities should not drop the old statutes but instead enforce them, arguing that thieves who steal livestock or violent criminals who harm innocent people should receive a whipping to teach them a lesson.

“The worst criminals need strong punishing or else they’ll do crimes over and over,” said Chris Drummond, a Kingston man with three school-age children. “Getting locked up is not always enough.”

The last to suffer the punishment in Jamaica was Errol Pryce, who was sentenced to four years in prison and six lashes in 1994 for stabbing his mother-in-law.

Pryce was flogged the day before being released from prison in 1997 and later complained to the U.N. Human Rights Committee, which ruled in 2004 that the form of corporal punishment was cruel, inhuman and degrading and violated his rights. Jamaican courts then stopped ordering whipping or flogging.

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Juanes, Jesse & Joy take home top Latin Grammys

LAS VEGAS (Reuters) – Colombian rocker Juanes and the Mexican brother and sister pop duo Jesse & Joy took home the top Latin Grammys on Thursday in Las Vegas on a night in which the contemporary triumphed over the traditional.

Juanes, one of the most well known Latin American stars worldwide, won the coveted album of the year with his “MTV Unplugged,” which also won best long-form video. Dominican singer and songwriter Juan Luis Guerra won producer of the year for Juanes‘ album.

“Here’s to the maestro Juan Luis Guerra for making this possible,” said Juanes, 40, who now has won 19 Latin Grammys, tying him with reggaeton group Calle 13 for the most awards.

Guerra, who made the romantic Bachata music famous and is known to sweep the awards from the Latin Academy of Recording Arts and Sciences, led the nominations with six nods this year. But he lost out on the big awards for record and song of the year with his “En El Cielo No Hay Hospital” (In Heaven There Is No Hospital).

Those two awards went to “Corre!” (Run!) by Jesse & Joy, the duo from Mexico City who won best new artists in the same Las Vegas venue in 2007. Their third studio album Con Quien Se Queda El Perro? (Who Is The Dog Staying With?) lost out on album of the year, but won best contemporary pop vocal album.

“Viva Mexico!,” said Jesse upon accepting record of the year, a phrase repeated several times by winners at the 13th edition of the Latin Grammys Thursday night.

Like Jesse & Joy five years earlier, Mexican pop group 3BallMTY won best new artists with their musical style known as “tribal guarachero,” a mix of Mexican cumbia and electronic dance music.

The trio, barely beyond their teenage years, found success on both sides of the U.S.-Mexico border with their debut album “Intentalo” (Try It). They dedicated their Latin Grammy to Mexican DJs.

Mexico’s Carla Morrison won best alternative music album with “Dejenme Llorar” (Let Me Cry). Wearing a red dress and sporting multiple tattoos on her arms, she let loose an expletive on the live broadcast after crying out “Viva Mexico!”

Among the top performances of the night were Juanes playing with veteran guitarrist Carlos Santana. The show opened with Miami-born rapper Pitbull, who sings in both English and Spanish.

Brazilian singer and songwriter Caetano Veloso was honored as the Latin Recording Academy‘s person of the year in a ceremony on Wednesday. A founder of the 1960s musical movement known as Tropicalia, Veloso continues to to be one of Brazil’s most popular and innovative artists at 70 years of age.

(Writing by Mary Milliken; Editing by Lisa Shumaker)

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EU watchdog endorses Sanofi diabetes and cancer drugs

LONDON (Reuters) – Sanofi won the backing of European regulators for two new drugs against diabetes and cancer on Friday, a shot in the arm for the French company’s drive to bring new products to market.

New diabetes drug Lyxumia was recommended for treating type 2 diabetes and Zaltrap was endorsed for the treatment of advanced colorectal cancer, the European Medicines Agency (EMA) said.

Recommendations from the EMA are normally endorsed by the European Commission within a couple of months.

Lyxumia, which Sanofi licensed from Denmark’s Zealand Pharma, is part of a new class of diabetes treatments called GLP-1 analogues which prompt the body to release insulin when a diabetic’s blood sugar level climbs too high.

It is one of several new medicines Sanofi is banking on to drive growth after patent losses on former top-selling drugs.

Rivals in the GLP-1 space include Novo Nordisk’s Victoza, and Byetta and Bydureon, from Amylin, the U.S. drugmaker acquired earlier this year by Bristol-Myers Squibb and AstraZeneca.

Zaltrap, developed with Regeneron Pharmaceuticals, is a so-called anti-angiogenic agent, designed to starve tumours of blood. It was approved in the United States in August.

Sanofi plans for submit Lyxumia for approval with the U.S. Food and Drug Administration by the end of the year.

(Reporting by Ben Hirschler; editing by Chris Wickham)

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China’s commerce minister voted out in rare congress snub: sources

BEIJING (Reuters) – China‘s commerce minister was surprisingly blocked from a spot on the ruling Communist Party’s elite body during a conclave this week, sources said, a rare snub for an official that could raise questions about trade policies during his tenure.

The failure of Chen Deming to secure a seat on the 25-member Politburo marks one of the few surprises to emerge from the party’s five-yearly congress that wrapped this week with the anointing of a new slate of top leaders who will run the world’s second largest economy.

It is also the first time in more than two decades that an official designated for a Politburo spot has been voted out of the party’s 205-member Central Committee in elections. Central Committee membership is a prerequisite for a Politburo seat.

“Chen Deming was voted out during multi-candidate elections to the Central Committee,” one source told Reuters. State news agency Xinhua said there were eight percent more candidates than seats in a preliminary vote before the formal election on Wednesday.

Not being name as an alternate or full member during the party’s 18th congress means Chen, who was previously an alternate member, is almost certain to step down as commerce minister next March. Party regulations require cabinet ministers to be Central Committee members.

It is unclear why Chen, who was seen as a strong candidate for a vice premiership and at 63 is young enough to serve another five-year term under party rules, did not secure the votes for a seat on the Central Committee.

Tianjin Mayor Huang Xingguo, 58, who was elected a full member of the Central Committee, is front-runner to replace Chen as commerce minister, two sources with ties to the leadership said.

Ma Kai, 66, secretary general of the State Council, or cabinet, is tipped to become a vice premier now that Chen is out of the running, the sources said, requesting anonymity to avoid repercussions for discussing secretive elite politics.

Until now, a politician designated to become a Politburo member has not been barred from the Central Committee since 1987, when Deng Liqun, an ultra-conservative and reviled Marxist ideologue, was voted out at the 13th congress in a deeply embarrassing fall from grace.

Chen’s imminent retirement as commerce minister, a post he has held since taking over from now disgraced politician Bo Xilai in late 2007, would come as China faces growing tension with major trade partners in Europe and the United States and Chinese officials warn of increasing protectionism.

China’s leaders set a goal for 10 percent export growth this year, but it is more likely to come in at around 7 percent as the world has struggled to recover from financial crisis.

DEFENDED RECORD

Some experts suggest that Chen’s age was the main factor in his ouster.

“Minister Chen didn’t get onto the Central Committee because of his age. He was born in 1949 and that makes him too old to serve a full term,” said a Commerce Ministry official who declined to be identified.

But exceptions to the mandatory retirement age of 65 are often made for cabinet ministers and provincial governors and politicians can become a vice premier before they turn 68.

Du Qinglin, 66, a vice chairman to parliament’s advisory body, was just elected to the Central Committee.

At a news conference last week on the sidelines of the congress, Chen declined to answer questions about whether he was being considered for a vice premier post, but he defended the ministry’s record at the World Trade Organisation.

“When you consider the volume of trade cases in which China is involved, we’ve won quite a few,” Chen said. “But we haven’t bragged about our wins, whereas some of our foreign colleagues have trumpeted theirs.”

Analysts said Chen had a reputation as a competent and moderate minister, suggesting his performance may not have been at the center of his failure to secure a central committee seat, and despite the questions that are bound to arise, policy would probably not change.

“China’s overall trade policy is not set by the ministry, but by the central government,” said He Weiwen, director of the China-U.S. Trade Research Centre at the University of International Business and Economics in Beijing.

Under Chen, the ministry has increased its use of WTO legal processes, in part to gain experience. China has a relatively short history of participating in multilateral institutions and while it has lost most of WTO cases filed against it, most countries defending against complaints have the same problem.

Scott Kennedy, director of the Research Centre for Chinese Politics and Business at Indiana University said Chen’s departure from the Central Committee was puzzling and political motives could be at play.

“I don’t think he could be punished for his record as minister of commerce. I think overall he’s done a pretty decent job with the hand he has been dealt,” Kennedy said.

(Additional reporting by Lucy Hornby and Nick Edwards; Editing by Robert Birsel)

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Canada’s Carney says rate hikes “less imminent”

TORONTO (Reuters) – Interest rate hikes have become less imminent than the Bank of Canada once expected, although rates are still likely to rise, central bank Governor Mark Carney said in an interview published on Saturday.

“Over time, rates are likely to increase somewhat, but over time, so a less imminent timing relative to our expectation,” Carney said in an interview with the National Post newspaper.

Canada’s economy rebounded better than most from the global economic recession, and the Bank of Canada is the only central bank in the Group of Seven leading industrialized nations that is currently hinting at higher interest rates.

But Carney has also made clear that there will be no rate rise for a while, despite high domestic borrowing rates that he sees as a major risk to a still fragile economy.

“We’ve been very clear in terms of lines of defense in addressing financial vulnerabilities,” he said in the interview. “And the most prominent one, obviously, in Canada, is household debt.”

He said the bank was monitoring the impact of four successive government moves to tighten mortgage lending, which aimed to take the froth out of a hot housing market without causing a damaging crash in prices.

A Reuters poll published on Friday showed the majority of 20 forecasters believe the government has done enough to rein in runaway prices, preventing the type of crash that devastated the U.S. market.

The experts expect Canadian housing prices to fall 10 percent over the next several years, but they do not expect the recent property boom to end in a U.S.-style collapse.

(Reporting by Janet Guttsman; Editing by Vicki Allen)

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“Twilight Saga” ends with movie love letter to fans

LOS ANGELES (Reuters) – “Twilight” fans bid an emotional farewell this week to Bella, Edward and Jacob in “Breaking Dawn-Part 2,” the romantic book and movie franchise that ignited a pop culture infatuation with blood-sucking vampires and werewolves.

The tumultuous love triangle between human girl Bella Swan, vampire Edward Cullen and werewolf Jacob Black, that has gripped avid fans known as “Twi-hards” for seven years, comes to a tantalizing end as “Breaking Dawn-Part 2″ hits movie theaters around the world.

The “Twilight” film franchise, based on a series of novels by Stephenie Meyer, rocketed the three main stars, Kristen Stewart (Bella), Robert Pattinson (Edward) and Taylor Lautner (Jacob), into the spotlight and the first four films have grossed more than $ 2.5 billion at the worldwide box office.

For director Bill Condon, who shot both parts of “Breaking Dawn” together and split into two movies post-production, the fifth and final film was all about the fans – who get a surprise twist to the ending.

“The real challenge was to make sure it was a satisfying climax,” Condon told reporters. “The film opens with an overture of all the main scenes from all five movies, and at the end, I…brought (it) back to the spirit of the old movies.”

The movie pays homage to the angst-ridden teenage romance between Bella and Edward that was underscored by the off-screen real-life romance between Stewart, 22, and Pattinson, 26.

“Breaking Dawn-Part 2″ shifts the action from a love story to a family story, as the Cullen clan recruit their extended vampire family to protect Bella and Edward’s daughter Renesmee from an ancient vampire coven.

“I think it’s very sweet, especially the ending of it, I think it’s very close to the book as well. It seems to be that it’s really made for the fans,” Pattinson told Reuters.

GOING OFF BOOK

While the past four films have stayed true to the books, author Meyer and screenwriter Melissa Rosenberg came up with a plot twist that adds a major scene that may surprise movie-goers.

“(The action) is off screen in the novel because we only see what Bella sees, and this was just a way of making visual what some of the other characters might have seen,” Meyer told reporters.

“It does feel very surprising. There’s something new to see but to me it doesn’t seem like it’s going hugely off the page,” she added.

While the fourth film saw Bella’s human life draw to a conclusion when she died giving birth to a human-vampire hybrid baby with new husband Edward, “Breaking Dawn-Part 2,” sees Bella as a mother and a newly-transformed vampire.

“The coolest thing about vampire Bella is that I got to play her as a human for so long, and the special parts of each vampire are always informed by the great things that they were as a human and so I got to walk in those shoes,” Stewart told Reuters.

“Everything made total sense to me. I waited for so long (to play a vampire), once I finally got it, it was so comfortable, I couldn’t wait,” the actress added.

“The Twilight Saga,” first published in 2005, kicked off a wave of vampire or supernatural-themes books, films and TV shows including HBO’s “True Blood,” the CW TV network’s “The Vampire Diaries” and Richelle Mead’s “Vampire Academy” series of young adult novels.

As the sun sets on the franchise Meyer brought to life, the author said that while she didn’t rule out the possibility of finding more stories in the vampire-werewolf universe, she had closed the chapter on the Cullens.

“I don’t know if I’ll ever get back to these (stories). Someday I’ll write down what was going to happen next. It’s sad knowing I don’t have another party with the kids again, I really hope I have a chance to at least see my friends again,” she told Reuters.

(Reporting by Piya Sinha-Roy, editing by Jill Serjeant and Marguerita Choy)

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