Oh no. Twilight has started swapping its actors around again, and you know how furious that makes its fans.

So who’s out now? Has Taylor Lautner been elbowed? Has the recession forced producers to replace two of the New Moon Wolf Pack with some rudimentary kebab-meat statues of Adam Rickett? Has Robert Pattinson quit Twilight because he’s tired wiping teeny urine off his front door every morning?

No. It’s the character of Victoria – Rachelle Lefevre is out and Bryce Dallas Howard is in. We suppose we should draft up that ‘Robert Pattinson gets Bryce Dallas Howard pregnant’ article, then.

In many ways, the Twilight saga is like moving into your first home. Partly because it’s something that you think will be short and easy but inevitably ends up lasting forever, costing several times more than you expected and leaving you with deep, vast emotional scars that will never fully heal. And partly because of the furniture.

Like your first home, Twilight started off full of whatever cheap old crap the producers could get their hands on. It starred Kristen Stewart, the Ikea Emily Browning. It starred Kellen Lutz, the Tesco Value Tom Welling. And it starred Robert Pattinson, the second-hand-and-borrowed-from-your-mum-even-though-you-don’t-really-like-it Henry Cavill. And, as the Twilight films have gone on, some of these pieces have begun to slowly get replaced.

For New Moon, they tried to replace Taylor Lautner – at least until fans started squealing in protest – and they brought in esteemed names like Dakota Fanning and Michael Sheen. And now for Eclipse they’re replacing Rachelle Lefevre, who played Victoria Cullen, with critically-acclaimed actress Bryce Dallas Howard. Does this mean that in Breaking Dawn Bella and Edward will be played by Dame Judi Dench and the reanimated corpse of Sir John Gielgud?

Yes. Yes it clearly does mean that. But for now let’s concentrate on Bryce Dallas Howard starring in Eclipse, shall we? The LA Times reports:

“We are incredibly happy that Bryce has agreed to come into the franchise,” said Erik Feig, Summit’s president of worldwide production and acquisitions. “Rachelle brought “Victoria” to great screen life and Bryce will bring a new dimension to the character. The franchise is lucky to have such a talented actress as Bryce coming in to fill the role.”

What’s interesting here is the stealth in which Bryce Dallas Howard has quietly replaced Rachelle Lefevre. It’s almost like the Eclipse producers were terrified that the Twilight fanatics would kick up a stink on the internet like they did when Taylor Lautner was almost replaced. But now the news is out, so we expect the protests to begin any second now.

Now.

Now?

Hello? Anybody? What’s that? Nobody minds that Rachelle Lefevre has been replaced by Bryce Dallas Howard because she’s not a non-threateningly attractive teenage boy who Twilight fans buy posters of just so they can stay at home at night licking them? Oh. OK. Good point.

Still, we’d like to personally welcome Bryce Dallas Howard into the world of Twilight, and assure her that she’s going to be great in Eclipse. After all, Bryce has appeared in Spider-Man 3, Terminator Salvation, the sequel to Dogville and two late-period M. Night Shyamalan movies – so if there’s one thing she’s good at, it’s jumping in on a film franchise at exactly the moment that everyone stops liking it. This role could have been created for her.

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