Twilight's Pattinson, Lautner and Stewart to miss premiere

Image source, AP

Image caption, Kristen Stewart and Taylor Lautner are travelling the world promoting Eclipse

The three biggest stars of the Twilight series will not be attending the UK premiere of The Twilight Saga: Eclipse in London next month.

A spokesperson confirmed that Robert Pattinson, Kristen Stewart and Taylor Lautner will not be present in Leicester Square on 1 July.

It's believed the leading trio are occupied with other work commitments.

Instead the stars are said to be recording video messages to be relayed to fans at the event.

Released on 9 July, Eclipse is the third instalment of the franchise which has already featured Twilight and New Moon.

Taylor Lautner and Kristen Stewart travelled to meet fans in Australia earlier this week (1 June) before travelling to South Korea.

Robert Pattinson isn't with them because he's busy filming his next movie, Water for Elephants, which also stars Reese Witherspoon.

New material

Eclipse follows Bella (Kristen Stewart) as she's targeted by evil vampire Victoria.

She also has to choose between Team Edward, and the vampires, and Team Jacob, and the werewolves.

Peter Facinelli plays Carlisle Cullen, Robert Pattinson's vampire dad in the Twilight films.

Image source, AFP

Image caption, Peter Facinelli plays Carlisle Cullen in the film adaptations of Twilight

He says there's no competition on set and they're all one big happy family.

"The Cullens hang out a lot together," he said. "We all started this together and it feels like our family has just grown.

"We started with this Cullen group and then we added the werewolves and now in Eclipse we added the bad vampires.

"But the whole set is really like a family, so even though we play opposing forces on screen, everyone really gets along.

"That said, you always gravitate towards your clan in the movie. The Cullen family always hangs out, going to dinners together. The werewolf pack's always doing their thing."

The first new Twilight book for about two years is also out this Saturday (5 June).

Stephenie Meyer's written The Short Second Life of Bree Tanner, about one of the newborn vampire characters from Eclipse.

It's published at 5.05am and various book stores and supermarkets around the UK and Ireland are opening early.