The idea came to author Stephenie Meyer in a dream

The 49-year-old author - who has cameo in the film as a diner customer - can the name the exact date the plot nestled itself into her mind whilst she was asleep.

Stephenie said: "It was two people in kind of a little circular meadow with really bright sunlight, and one of them was a beautiful, sparkly boy and one was just a girl who was human and normal, and they were having this conversation. The boy was a vampire, which is so bizarre that I'd be dreaming about vampires, and he was trying to explain to her how much he cared about her and yet at the same time how much he wanted to kill her."