Author Marissa Meyer said it was coming soon, and here it is!  The cover for book three of the Lunar Chronicles series, Cress:

Each cover has complemented the introduction of the title character so well that it’s no surprise how beautiful this one turned out.  Of course, it’s the words inside the book that really draw in readers, and in this interview with USA Today, Marissa goes on further to explain the characters in Cress, the introduction of more characters and the plans of the books being made into movies.

Check out the interview after the jump.  Warning: slight spoilers involved.

Q: Will Cress be more sci-fi than Scarlet or Cinder?

A: We are moving into more sci-fi elements. There is more time spent on the spaceship that we were introduced to in Book 2, and of course the satellite and the computer hacking. It still stays pretty focused on the characters and the different human things that they’re facing as opposed to the technology.

Q: You started with Cinder, Prince Kai and others in Cinder, added extra characters such as Scarlet and Wolf to your world with Scarlet, and now have even more with Cress. Is it getting tricky to juggle the large ensemble cast?

A: It’s definitely a challenge — in particular for me because for the most part, you only have maybe two or three characters in any subplot at any given time. You don’t want a reader to be so involved with one story line that they’re bored when you go back to another. It requires a lot of playing around with where the different chapters are going to fall. But for me, the biggest reward of being a writer is having this big, messy, complicated plot and then trying to figure out how to tell the story in a way that keeps readers engaged.

Q: Are you using existing folks as a way to introduce Cress and bounce her off people fans already know?

A: There’s a lot of that. Some of my biggest influences are Firefly and Sailor Moon, and in both of those, you have these ensemble casts in which the relationships between the characters are so important — and, in many ways, more important than what’s happening plotwise. They don’t always get along all the time. Seeing how they interact with each other is really my favorite part of the series.

Q: Will we get to meet anybody new in this book who will also play a role in Winter?

A: In addition to Cress, there’s a new character named Jacin. He had a really, really tiny role in the first book, but I don’t expect anybody to really remember him. He actually takes on a much bigger role than I anticipated. Really, by the end of Book 3, you will have met all of the main characters, including Winter. She has a small part in Book 3, but the chapter she’s in might be my favorite chapter of the book because she’s a very interesting character and a lot of fun to write.

Q: What can you reveal about her?

A: Winter is the evil queen’s stepdaughter. She’s lived on Luna in the palace but grown up with her stepmother and seen how, when Levon uses her lunar powers, it’s turned her into such a tyrant. Winter has decided never to use her lunar gift. But when a lunar chooses not to use their gift, it slowly starts to drive them crazy, so Winter is afflicted with bad hallucinations, and as the book goes on, her mental state is slowly deteriorating.

Q: You’ve spent three books and counting with these characters. Are you getting close to realizing the end is near?

A: I definitely think a lot about it. With the fourth book, on one hand, I’ll be glad to be done with it, but I’ll also miss it, and I know there’s going to be times when I think, “Man, I want to write a short story about these characters!” It will be a very bittersweet thing, but it’s also very exciting. Writing Book 4 now, you have these expectations about the big climax and all the romantic resolutions, so just trying to think about what I can do to satisfy all the readers who have stuck with it for four books is taking up a lot of my thought power these days.

Q: Do you have a definite ending in place?

A: I’m pretty sure I know how everything’s going to go. Some elements have changed, particularly with the specific details. As you’re writing, you discover a weakness a character has, and then you want to bring that into the climax somehow.

In the article, they do state that the series has been optioned for a movie series, but no word on which studio bought the rights to the books (keeping my fingers crossed that it’s a YA-friendly studio), but that search for a director may be in the works right now.

Q: As far as the Lunar movies go, is the plan to make a full quadrilogy?

A: I would love that. I don’t know if they play on making all four, or make one and see how it goes. But I want to see them all!

Q: When you finally signed the deal, did you start dream-casting in your head?

A: I haven’t really gone there. A lot of my fans have come up with dream casts, which I think is really fun. It’s weird how some of them are so spot-on, and it’s like, “Yes, that totally looks like how I imagine Cinder.” But then other readers will do these castings where I’m like, “Did we read the same book?”

Q: What’s the craziest you’ve seen?

A: I’m not really good with celebrities, so I never really remember the names, but you see a lot of fan-casting white guys as Kai, who is Asian. That always throws me off a little bit. But they’re cute! As long as they’re cute …

I would definitely love to see this series on screen as it has such a familiar yet refreshing storyline that I think would translate well on film, if done right.  What do you think of making these into movies?  Are you for it, or are you too scared that Hollywood is going to muck it up?

via USA Today.