Cue the Twihard furies to defend their righteous Queen of Love Triangles, or at least, so the hopeful filmmakers behind the adaptation of The Host would have you believe. It’s a question of whether Meyers’ fans will flock to see any movie based upon her novels as they have done (to the tune of worldwide) for her previous de minimus efforts, but a few producers and a screenwriter certainly believe that the audience is there for The Host, which is a sci-fi novel embedded with Meyers’ never-to-be-abandoned love triangle formula. Now, get ready to weep, for the actress that has been newly confirmed for the lead role is none other than the Oscar-nominated Saoirse Ronan:

Saoirse Ronan has been set to star in The Host, the screen adaptation of the bestselling novel by Twilight Saga author Stephenie Meyer. Scripted by Andrew Niccol, the film figures to be one of the hot titles when Inferno launches sales at the 2011 Cannes Film Festival next week. Niccol, who was originally set to direct, might resurface as the filmmaker.

Ronan, the Oscar-nominated star of Atonement, The Lovely Bones and most recently Hanna, will play Melanie Stryder, one of the last humans putting up a fight against an alien species called Souls. These parasites invade human bodies, fuse to each person’s consciousness and systematically erase their personalities. Melanie is captured by the aliens and implanted by a Soul called Wanderer, something of a legend because of all of the “hosts” she has attached to on numerous planets. Wanderer’s goal is to get Melanie to give up the remaining pockets of humans, but instead the alien finds Melanie to be unique in her unwillingness to surrender her consciousness. Wanderer is so overwhelmed by Melanie’s memories and feelings, the alien is driven to reconnect with Melanie’s old life.

The concept is more of a visual challenge than Meyer’s Twilight Saga books, but one thing they plan is for Ronan to play both Melanie and Wanderer. Meyer’s book has an enormous fan base, and the author had long resisted offers to sell it. She finally made a deal two years ago with producers Nick Wechsler and Steve and Paula Mae Schwartz, who’d done the adaptation of Cormac McCarthy’s The Road together. They deliberately developed the script outside the studio system, and invited the author to be very hands on in the adaptation. Meyer was involved down to choosing Niccol because she was such a fan of his films Gattaca and his script for The Truman Show.

[From Deadline]

In the interest of full disclosure, I must admit that, after reading The Host, I found that it was indeed rather mindless but not on such a grand scale as any of the Twilight Saga books. However, Ronan is obviously much better than this movie deserves, so in one respect, it’s almost maddening to think of Ronan wasting her talent upon bringing yet another silly Stephenie Meyers story to life on the big screen. Still, I do think it’s permissible for an indie queen to occasionally throw in her chips, say “F&#$ it,” and just go for the money grab for once. After all, we don’t have to worry about this movie going franchise or anything … yet.

Photos courtesy of Fame Pictures