I don't care about Twilight but have seen some of you complaining about the director and so little Twilighters rejoice, now you can go sparkle or whatever it is you do.
EXCLUSIVE: So the rumors are true. I've confirmed that Summit Entertainment is taking Twilight director Catherine Hardwicke off the sequel in this big new franchise. No doubt my news will speed up the studio's announcement, and Summit will surely scramble to spin this as all going down amicably along the lines that she "couldn't fit the film into her time frame". But this terrible news for Hardwicke comes just as she and the Twilight cast are on their European press tour. No doubt, tomorrow's interviews in France will now focus entirely on what, if anything, Catherine did to deserve this treatment. This also could blow up into a scandal for Summit if it chooses a male director over Hardwicke, whose Twilight easily beat Mimi Leder's 1998 Deep Impact box office gross as the biggest opener for a female director. That was a record embraced by Hollywood feminists as a sign of growing gal power. Now Hardwicke's career will surely be damaged by this very public firing because, even though the pic was skewered by critics, it is already a $160M low-cost blockbuster. Summit has started preparing the sequel New Moon, based on Meyer's second book in the series, and, to contain costs, the studio is considering making third book Eclipse back to back).
The word from inside Summit is that Hardwicke, the acclaimed Thirteen director, "was 'difficult' and
'irrational' during the making of Twilight," one insider explains to me. "That doesn't mean anything when you're talking
about a filmmaker because they all are, but still..." (Indeed, Joe Roth and Sony kept saying those things about Julie Taymor on Across The
Universe. Yet she made a cult classic and is now directing Marvel/Sony's Spider-Man for Broadway.) From another of my sources, "Summit
didn't like her. They're saying the DP [director of photography] Elliot Davis is the one responsible for the film's sumptuous visual look, that the
editor Nancy Richardson had to save the film in post-production, and Summit thought Hardwicke's [CAA] agent Beth Swofford was alternately ineffectual and
hysterical [when it came to controlling her client]."
In fact, I'm told that the studio has even had quiet talks with other CAA directors for the last week. "And Swofford never told Hardwicke about that and that she was about to get kicked to the gutter," an insider tells me. "To add insult to injury, Hardwicke can now look forward to being grilled by the press for days on end, in front of the cast, about why she's getting shit-canned."
Source: Deadlinehollywood.com
