Chris Marquette Message Board

I think we've all the seen the movie, Larry. Anyone who hasn't now has the chance to read no further.

-TeeJay

Lifetime is airing "Stephanie Daley" this week.  Saturday I think.   For some reason they've changed the title to "What She Knew".  :clueless:  I don't know who changed it, but that title sounds like it was cooked up in the Lifetime labs.:rolleyes:

I don't mind Chris Weitz. I've enjoyed most of his films, even the ones which arn't the greatest.

BTW, larry-411, i just love how you posted at exactly 00:00.

Hey guys,

There's been a lot of worry and speculation on the boards lately, and I want to let you know what's going on.

First of all, like you, I'm sad that Catherine is not continuing on with us for New Moon. I'm going to miss her, not just as a brilliant director, but also as a friend. She has such a distinct, authentic voice that did amazing things for Twilight. I'm looking forward to every movie she does in the future.

And she didn't leave us empty handed. We still get the benefits of her amazing casting and the beautiful visual world she created. This foundation puts us in a good place for New Moon.

Summit Films is moving forward with a new director for New Moon. They've asked Chris Weitz, director of American Pie, About a Boy, and The Golden Compass, to join us, and I am very pleased to announce that he's agreed to be a part of our Twilight world. I've had the chance to talk to Chris, and I can tell you that he is excited by the story and eager to keep the movie as close to the book as possible. He is also very aware of you, the fans, and wants to keep you all extremely happy. (Torches and pitchforks are not going to be necessary.)

I'm excited to work with Chris and I think he brings a lot to the table, not the least of which for me is that he wrote the screenplay for and directed one of my favorite movies of all time, About a Boy. I'm really looking forward to seeing his vision for New Moon.

Below is a letter from Chris to you. I think you'll get a glimpse in this note of how cool it's going to be having Chris as part of our community.

Dec 11 2008 8:00 AM EST
'Twilight' Director Catherine Hardwicke Reveals DVD Details
Before her exit from the series, Hardwicke told MTV News about her giggly commentary, deleted scenes and more.
By Larry Carroll

SANTA MONICA, California — These days, "Twilight" fans are so freaked out that you'd think James the nomad was on to their scent.

Even though their beloved vampire film keeps taking in big bucks at the box office, director Catherine Hardwicke has been yanked off the sequels, and names of potential successors are jumping around faster than Edward Cullen on a deer hunt.

As the future of the franchise hangs in the balance, and the fanbase splinters into various camps, we've set aside some cool news that should hopefully return a smile to the faces of Stephenie Meyer fans. It's part three of what would become Hardwicke's last in-depth interview as the "Twilight" captain. Following on the heels of her discussing record-setting box-office numbers and "New Moon" hopes, we bring you brand-new details about Hardwicke's final "Twilight" effort: the much-anticipated DVD.

"We just did the commentary," Hardwicke grinned when she came to visit our studio right after "Twilight" opened, revealing that she had spent time in an audio booth with stars Robert Pattinson and Kristen Stewart that very morning. "We were like, 'Is this the lamest commentary ever?' We were just laughing! I was thinking, 'Should we do something really serious with myself and the stunt guy and special-effects people and show aspiring filmmakers how we did those special effects?' But nope. We did the giggle version. [Rob and Kristen were] remembering the funny stuff that happened and the crazy stuff. They make fun of how they look in the movie."

Asked when the disc will arrive in stores, Hardwicke said, "I think spring. Maybe right after Valentine's Day." She then added even more information to the details she gave us about the DVD last month. "We have 10 deleted or extended scenes. There's some juicy stuff in there," she said, adding that one would correct an omission spotted by many Meyer fans. "I think in one of them, [Edward and Bella] do say, 'I love you.'

"There's a few crazy montages we made of every time someone gets bitten by a vampire that we didn't show in the movie. There's a lot more vampire biting," she said of the more violent material held back to get "Twilight" its PG-13 rating. "One montage is called 'Human Hijinks,' and it's all the human friends [including Mike Welch and Anna Kendrick] doing crazy stuff, more [from the field-trip scene] with the worms and the greenhouse. Just them totally messing around, going crazy. That's kind of fun."

A second montage will focus on the movie's undead moments. "There is the very sexy vampire biting — that is not in the movie," Hardwicke said of the bonus feature. "There's [Rob biting Kristen in the dream sequence], and then there's the nomadic vampires attacking. We have that in there too."

As for other notable moments, Hardwicke said: "There's a lot of behind-the-scenes stuff. We had a great guy, Jeff, who was [filming us] every day. He did some very creative interviews, so you can see us making almost every scene in the movie, which is kind of fun. I actually learned a few things I didn't even know, listening to other people's interviews!

"You can also see the orchestra in London performing 'Bella's Lullaby,' " she said of another bonus feature. "There's a lot of neat stuff."

Then there's the moment that MTV's "Twilight" Tuesday fans will perhaps be most eager to see, as explained hilariously last month by Edi Gathegi. " That 'Does a Baby Eat Candy?' scene was in rehearsal, so I'm trying to get them to put that rehearsal scene in; that was hysterical," Hardwicke laughed. "We literally fell on the ground, because [Edi's attempts at improv] can get pretty perverse. You have to see it!"

As for the other deleted scenes, "There are some scenes that are longer, and some scenes that we don't have in the movie," Hardwicke explained. "There's one scene that's not in the film where Rob and Kristen are walking alone, and he trips her and they fall back into these leaves, and then he takes a bite of her finger. ... It's Kristen's favorite scene."

Well that's the official reason.

According to this site, here is the reason.http://www.deadlinehollywooddaily.com/h … franchise/

No Hardwicke for 'Twilight' sequel
Timing conflicts cause for director's departure
By ANNE THOMPSON

Summit Entertainment has wasted no time moving ahead with the next installment in Stephenie Meyer's bestselling "Twilight" series, "New Moon." But in an unusual move after the successful launch of a franchise that has already generated $138.6 million, the upstart distrib is not bringing director Catherine Hardwicke back to direct the picture. Summit and Hardwicke cite Summit's wish to rush the movie into production as one reason for their split. Summit wants to release the picture, which will demand substantial CGI work, by the end of 2009 or the start of 2010. A former production designer, Hardwicke wanted more prep time.

"Twilight" scripter Melissa Rosenberg handed in a draft of "New Moon" the weekend that "Twilight" opened. Hardwicke wanted more time to work on it; Summit announced it was going ahead with "New Moon" on November 22, with no director attached. Negotiations lasted two weeks before Hardwicke formally passed on the film Saturday.

As word spread through Hollywood agencies that the talks might not result in Hardwicke's return, reports surfaced that Summit was checking out other directors for the "Twilight" franchise while they insisted they were still negotiating with Hardwicke, who delivered the biggest opening weekend ever for a woman. (CAA denies that they were soliciting other directors.) The movie is still going strong as the director and cast promote it overseas; it came in second this weekend with $13.2 million, grossing a total $138.6 million.

The problem that stalled negotiations was that Hardwicke had strong opinions about what to do with the next installment, and so did Summit. The debate was how to focus the adaptation of the second book, which deals more with giant werewolves than vampires, as well as the long depression of Bella Swan (Kristen Stewart), after her vampire lover (Rob Pattinson) leaves her. One issue was how to get more of teen heartthrob Pattinson into the film. (Rosenberg has figured out a device to achieve this.) But Hardwicke, burned out from her "Twilight" labors, simply wasn't willing to jam this movie with a script that still needed months of development.

"I am sorry that due to timing I will not have the opportunity to direct 'New Moon,'" said Hardwicke. "Directing 'Twilight' has been one of the great experiences of my life, and I am grateful to the fans for their passionate support of the film. I wish everyone at Summit the best with the sequel -- it is a great story."

"Catherine did an incredible job in helping us to launch the 'Twilight' franchise, and we thank her for all of her efforts and we very much hope to work with her on future Summit projects," said Summit production prexy Erik Feig. "We as a studio have a mandate to bring the next installment in the franchise to the big screen in a timely fashion so that fans can get more of Edward, Bella and all of the characters that Stephenie Meyer has created. We are able to pursue an aggressive time frame as we have the luxury of only adapting the novels into screenplays as opposed to having to create a storyline from scratch."

Hardwicke has other balls in the air, including two projects in the works with Groundswell Entertainment's Michael London, who produced "Thirteen."

Why 'Twilight's' director got the boot
02:47 PM PT, Dec 8 2008

Hardwicke2There's no way to put a pretty frame around this picture. After Catherine Hardwicke delivered an immensely lucrative franchise starter with "Twilight," a film that will put Summit Entertainment on the map, wiping away all the company's other losses and missteps, she was rewarded by being pushed aside, with Summit making it clear over the weekend that it's beginning work on a "Twilight" sequel without her. There is an enormously complicated back story to the events, but what really happened here was another example of the age-old collision between art and commerce.

Director of such indie-style films as "Thirteen" and "Lords of Dogtown," Hardwicke is an incredibly gifted filmmaker who gave "Twilight" an emotional intensity that helped the movie capture the heart-racing intoxication of Stephenie Meyer's novel, making the film a must-see for teenagers everywhere. (It's now grossed nearly $140 million in 18 days of release.) But Hardwicke is also a notoriously difficult, high-maintenance filmmaker who wears her emotions on her sleeve. This emotional intensity cuts both ways--it brought something special to the movie, but it made life a vertiginous roller-coaster for many people working on the film, from crew to executives.

On an indie film, prickly auteurs are a dime a dozen--they come with the territory. But in a shockingly short time, "Twilight" went from a quirky cult project, aimed at a teen subculture, to a massive, mainstream franchise. The indie movie suddenly became a mass-production product. The day after the movie opened, Summit announced that it wanted a sequel by late 2009. As Anne Thompson reports in today's Variety, Melissa Rosenberg, who wrote "Twilight," delivered her first draft of the sequel the weekend "Twilight" opened. Summit chief executive Rob Friedman, who deserves a lot of credit for supporting a project that had been put in turnaround by Paramount, the studio where he was a top executive for years, seems to have made a classic studio-style risk vs. reward decision: The sensitive artist who was the perfect filmmaker to launch the franchise was the wrong person to run the show once the project became a blockbuster franchise.

Hardwicke supporters say she had long ago soured on the prospect of being involved with the kind of franchise where a release window takes precedence over a finished script, saying she didn't want to be involved with a sequel, believing it would be more an assembly-line product than an artistic challenge. But after "Twilight" became a box-office phenomenon, her reps at CAA gently tried to persuade her to stay on board, especially if Summit would grant her creative control on the sequel. Like any filmmaker, Hardwicke felt a lot of love when "Twilight" swept across the pop-culture landscape, not to mention a pride of authorship in its success. But when she registered a lack of enthusiasm in the new script, it quickly became obvious that Summit would seek a more pragmatic filmmaker to helm the follow-up film.

What does this tell us about Hollywood? And was there a guy-girl conflict behind Hardwicke's departure? Keep reading:

Rob Friedman insists that the "Twilight" sequel, "New Moon," was not being rushed into production. "We love the draft she turned in," he says. "Melissa has worked very hard on the material and was an integral part of what made the original film such a success. This is not a rush job. The movie only gets released when its finished. I'd like it to be next year, but we're not going to put out a bad movie to hit a release date."

On the other hand, Summit can't dawdle. Unlike with "Harry Potter," whose characters aged with each book, the characters in the "Twilight" series remain young forever, so if the studio is going to rely on its newly minted stars, Kristen Stewart and Rob Pattinson, to carry the entire series, it has to move full speed ahead. Summit has options on its lead actors, but since they are now in demand for other films, if Summit doesn't press ahead quickly, it could lose them for months on end to other productions.

Hardwicke's abrupt departure has also fueled rumors that she clashed with the all-male hierarchy at Summit. It's a charge often leveled at Hollywood's largely all-male executive ranks, which has a woeful track record of hiring female filmmakers on mainstream studio projects. Friedman insists there were no gender issues. "It's an insult to me personally as well as to our company. I'm the father of four daughters. When I was at Paramount, we did Kathryn Bigelow's 'K-19: The Widowmaker.' I was the person who marketed Mimi Leder's 'Deep Impact' [often cited as one of the most commercially successful films directed by a woman]. Here at Summit, one of the first films we've bought was 'The Hurt Locker,' which is also directed by Kathryn Bigelow. We would definitely make another film with Catherine Hardwicke, just not the sequel to 'Twilight.' "

Still, given the choice, most studios prefer to keep the director who started the franchise rolling, whether its Sam Raimi with "Spider-Man," Steven Soderbergh on "Ocean's Eleven," Brett Ratner with "Rush Hour" or Jay Roach on "Austin Powers." On "The Dark Knight," Warner Bros. has made it clear that the franchise will only proceed when Christopher Nolan, who brought the Batman franchise back to life, says it's ready to go. Summit's handling of Hardwicke's departure is more reminiscent of what Universal did with its "Bourne" series, which was also in the hands of a prickly indie filmmaker. Doug Liman launched the franchise with his dazzling "The Bourne Identity," but he went way over schedule and drove the studio crazy with his improvisational perfectionism. Even though the movie was a big hit and seemed to carry Liman's personal stamp, the studio ditched him, bringing in Paul Greengrass, a filmmaker with equally indie-minded credentials who could better deal with the deadlines and demands of a studio environment.

Summit's challenge will be to find a filmmaker to take over the "Twilight" series who has artistic credibility but who can handle the challenge of a ramped-up filming schedule (Summit's goal is to film both the second and third books in the series next year.) The most closely watched part of the decision will be the gender component. If Summit picks a guy, it will be open to criticism from the female filmmaking community, which is already furious over how few studio jobs go to women. But the female filmmaking gene pool is small. Most successful female directors are indie filmmakers, not studio pros, which would put Summit back in the same awkward situation of hiring a personal filmmaker who can't--or won't--embrace the by-the-book filmmaking model of most franchises.

Maybe I'm blinded by my fondness for Hardwicke's style of filmmaking, but I'm betting she won't have any trouble finding new projects to helm. If nothing else, the success of "Twilight" proves that a fiercely independent filmmaker can make a hugely successful commercial film. That's not just good news for Hardwicke, who now has some box-office clout to go with her art-house cred (even if she's probably getting deluged with bad vampire scripts as we speak). But it might even open a few doors for some other indie filmmakers eager to prove they can make good movies that make money too.

I thought that thing you quoted was from Mike.  I didn't click the link so I misunderstood.  I'm not that into this whole Twilight thing, you know, so I haven't clicked through to every single article/interview you've posted.  My bad.  I do wanna see the movie, but I won't be rushing out to do so and I won't be buying up all the books.