UPDATE #2: Summit has now released an official statement which you can read here.
UPDATE: Variety is now also reporting the news without citing Finke as the soure via Anne Thompson’s blog.
Back on November 27 I asked you “New Moon] in this big new franchise.” Snap, boom, bang. Did you see that coming? I did.
As Finke points this out she also reminds us that Hardwicke is currently in the midst of a European press tour with the cast of the film as the film opened in the UK on December 3. Who will pick up the directorial duties? I offered up names such as Mira Nair, Niki Caro, Sofia Coppola, Julie Taymor, Kimberly Peirce, Kathryn Bigelow and Patty Jenkins. I have no idea what Summit will do, but I sincerely hope they stick with a female in the directorial position just as Finke mentions, it would be a scandalous move for Summit to go with a male director as Twilight is the highest grossing film for a female director and the idea of such a large film being so entrenched with female ideals is something many ladies have grasped onto.
Finke then turns into her natural gossip self by quoting supposed insiders saying Hardwicke “was ‘difficult’ and ‘irrational’ during the making of Twilight” and “Summit didn’t like her. They’re saying the [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.”
I personally don’t think Hardwicke was right for the job, but with this news coming out while she is still promoting the film seems dramatically unfair.
What do you all think? Happy? Sad? Who should direct the next one?
