Accusations and speculation are flying all over the Internet after this weekend’s announcement that Catherine Hardwicke and Summit Entertainment parted ways on the “Twilight” franchise. On the anti-Summit side you’ve got any number of writers, including Jeffrey Wells, accusing Summit of being a “boy’s club” and bringing up feminism and girl power. On the anti-Hardwicke side you’ve got Nikki Finke quoting “inside sources at Summit” calling her “‘difficult’ and ‘irrational’ during the making of ‘Twilight’.” You can probably get the real story by splitting the difference – everyone knows Hollywood isn’t quick to create content geared to women or put women in charge of projects. And everyone knows that film directors can sometimes be picky visionaries who are difficult to work with – it’s just a matter of how much a studio is willing to withstand for a director.
Whatever the case may be, the LA Times blog does a pretty good job explaining all sides and we say that, while it’s a shame to lose Hardwicke’s distinctively female point of view on this fangirl franchise, perhaps her indie vision of the movie wouldn’t be the very best course for the franchise. Honestly, the only thing worse than the self-referential dialogue in “Twilight” was the terrible make-up and the special effects were positively Razzies worthy.
The other major topic of speculation is who will replace Hardwicke. Nikki Finke has Chris Weitz (producer on “Nick and Norah’s Infinite Playlist” and director of “The Golden Compass” and “About A Boy”) with an offer to step into the role, along with some gossip about him being longtime friends of Summit head of production Eric Feig. Yeah, as if almost everything in the movie industry isn’t based 90% on who you know.
At any rate that news, should it pan out, is head and shoulders over some of the options MTV post for their picks to take over the “Twilight” franchise. No one thinks there is a shot in hell that Sofia Coppola, Ang Lee, Brett Ratner, David Fincher or (for Christ’s sake) Roman Polanski are going to sign on for this project. It’s like they just made a list of the directors they knew from the past few years at the Oscars.
However, we’re all a bit intrigued with the idea of Amy Heckerling coming on board. The dialogue in the “Twilight” series is probably nowhere near snappy enough for her though.