Juan Antonio Bayona Is Not Eclipse Director

Despite Juan Antonio Bayona being reported as the new director of the “Twilight” sequel “Eclipse,” according to The Los Angeles Times Summit Entertainment has not picked him to helm the movie.

“The Eclipse directing job hasn’t been offered to Juan Antonio or anyone else. We’ve met with three or four talented filmmakers and we’ll be meeting with three or four more other candidates before we make any decision. No one has been offered the job,”

said Erik Feig, who’s president of production at Summit Entertainment and the man most involved with managing the hit series of films.

Bayona has met with Summit executives as well as “Twilight” author Stephenie Meyer (who has written all the books in the series). Apparently the director doesn’t even know if he wants to direct “Eclipse.” He fears that by directing the third film in the series it will be hard to add his creative stamp with the casting and character development already taken care of.

This director “castings” is starting to seem like nothing but a bunch of rumors…Juan Antonio Bayona, Paul Weitz, Drew Barrymore, James Mangold…nothing official yet.

Juan Antonio Bayona to direct Twilight: Eclipse?

Word going around last week was that Drew Barrymore, James Mangold and Paul Weitz were al in consideration to direct Eclipse. Now that may turn out to be false as well.

According to The Hollywood Reporter, Guillermo del Toro protege Juan Antonio Bayona, director of the acclaimed Spanish-lanague horror film “The Orphanage“, is one of the finalists for the gig.

Summit Entertainment declined to comment about Bayona directing the film, with a rep adding that the studio is still looking at several candidates to helm the project.

The second movie in the Twilight saga, “New Moon,” will begin production this year with Chris Weitz at the helm.

In “New Moon,” Edward leaves Bella, sending Bella into a depression and a friendship with a werewolf. In the third book, “Eclipse,” that relationship triangle evolves, while evil empires begin to pursue Bella. [source: THR]