Pattison has choices after "Twilight"

By Borys Kit

LOS ANGELES (Hollywood Reporter) - Thanks to "Twilight," Kristen Stewart and Rob Pattinson are bona fide stars. They cause riots at malls, they need security guards, and Pattinson even gets asked to suck necks.

And now, with the movie making more than $138 million (93 million pounds) in 17 days, they are entering a new phase of their careers. The two actors find themselves in an enviable position as the leads in a gold-plated franchise, and the offers began coming in almost a month before the movie opened.

Both already have their next movies in the can: Stewart stars with Jesse Eisenberg and Ryan Reynolds in "Adventureland," Gregg Mottola's follow-up to "Superbad," which is due March 27. Pattinson is playing surrealist artist Salvador Dali in Paul Morrison's "Little Ashes."

The big question is where they go from there.

The choices they make can take them on diverging paths. One could take them down the road of the hard-partying starlet who has potential, like Lindsay Lohan, who is overshadowed by offscreen antics, or that of a heartthrob like Colin Farrell, who rises from the indie ranks only to make mediocre studio movies and seven-figure paydays.

Another path could follow the discerning road taken by Jodie Foster, who grew from a child star into a leading lady and embodies selectivity and class, and by Natalie Portman, who built her name recognition playing Senator Amidala in the recent "Star Wars" movies while also seeking out challenging work under A-list directors.

But what the duo doesn't want is to make choices that will lead them to a lonely table at Comic-Con 20 years from now, signing old headshots and paying the bills by appearing in cheap horror or romance movies.

"You have to pay attention for that kind of thing when you sign on for a potential franchise," says Ken Kaplan, Stewart's Gersh-based agent. "You look at the role and go, 'Is this the kind of role that is so specific that people are not going to want to see you as anything else?'"