Summit Entertainment is wasting no time in finding a new director for “Twilight” sequel, “New Moon.” The studio has officially announced they will be moving ahead with the sequel without “Twilight” director Catherine Hardwicke.
The problem that stalled negotiations was that Hardwicke had strong opinions about what to do with the next installment, and so did Summit Entertainment.
Nikki Finke at DeadlineHollywoodDaily has a source that informs her the offer for the sequel is going out to Chris Weitz.
Yes, he's had tremendous success working with tweens and teens: “About A Boy” as director and writer, “American Pie” as producer and uncredited director. But Chris Weitz also did “The Golden Compass” (as writer and director), and my source says Summit Entertainment liked the look of that even if it didn't heat up the domestic box office (but did better overseas).
Despite this, Nikki Finke says that Chris Weitz is being tapped because he is friends with Summit's president of production Eric Feig.
The source tells me Weitz is “still considering” the offer to helm “New Moon” and possibly also “Eclipse” if the sequel and threequel movie adaptations of Stephenie Meyer‘s series of vampire books are made back-to-back.
According to one studio exec: “You’d have to have a very high standard for art, hate the movie business, and hate *money to walk off this sequel.” So with Weitz, they get the hack they wanted! The movie is doomed, indeed, to not satisfy any “standard for art.” Mabye it’s a good thing Taylor Lautner will be able to skip out on this dud. (Although the obvious move would be to have Taylor play Jacob pre-werewolf and Steven Strait play Jacob post-werewolf. But, personally, I don’t want either of those stellar actors sullied by Weitz. They should play brothers in a Catherine Hardwicke movie.)