Trouble already at the House of Twilight.

Catherine Hardwicke, director of Twilight and previously confirmed as the director of the sequel New Moon, has been fired. Summit Entertainment and Hardwicke made the announcement yesterday while Hardwicke is currently touring Europe with Kristen Stewart and Robert Pattinson to promote the dazzle, expected today in Paris.

Awkward.

Am told that Hardwicke was dumped because she would not compromise her vision of the film for the sake of rushing through production. Summit is eager to capitalise on the Twilight hysteria and hopes to release New Moon either by the end of 2009 or at the latest early 2010. Quite an ambitious timeline.

The studio of course is running on the assumption that the first movie was made for a paltry $30 million, shot in 2 months and released only 6 months after shooting ended. In this economy, clearly they’re hoping for the same low budget, quick turnaround.

But as the series progresses, and storylines become more complicated – and ridiculous and horrible and cheesy because, UGH, Stephenie Meyer sucks! – working with these tight wads was clearly not the ideal situation for Hardwicke.

So they’ve booted her.

And now they’re looking for a replacement. The excuse they’re floating, naturally, is that Hardwicke is difficult and that they were unhappy with many aspects of the finished Twilight product out in theatres right now, including the sappy ass direction and Edward’s constipated facial expressions. Bullsh-t. All that is source material. Hardwicke was working from Stephenie Meyer. The fact that she made the movie better than the book is an accomplishment in and of itself.

The reason is money, it’s as simple as that. Can you imagine? The second book involves werewolves and transformations and car chases …

If they decide to stay cheap, you thought the effects were bad in Twilight, especially the sh-tty sparkling eye shadow they used on Edward’s chest, how f-cking hilarious would it be to see Jacob running around in a Halloween costume? Ok now I kinda want them to go low budge. That would make my life.

And… heads up Canada… there is talk now that New Moon could be shot in Canada, saving on the exchange with the weak Canadian dollar. The most likely location would be British Columbia. Climate and landscape is similar to Washington.

The more intriguing question stemming from all of this however is how it will affect the stars. Kristen and Rob have both said Catherine was a deciding factor in their initial involvement. Even though both are contractually obligated to crank out the rest, given their temperaments, especially Kristen because she’s a bitch and I love her, it would not be surprising if these two suddenly hot stars start adopting a more difficult attitude, particularly if the studio is f-cking with the script.

Edward, as you know if you’ve read the Twilight sickness, does not factor into most of the second book. Can Summit afford to make a movie with its heartthrob missing from 3 quarters of the movie? If they force Edward into the movie, how will the fan freaks react? How will the actors react?

Rob has already alluded to the fact that he hopes they don’t mess with the story and Kristen has demonstrated her stubborn streak by straight up refusing even during the filming of the first movie to spit out Stephenie Meyer’s horrid dialogue and/or adhere to the expectations usually placed upon young Hollywood starlets.

Tumultuous times ahead.

LOVE.

Here’s Catherine Hardwicke with Kristen and Rob in Munich the other day. Rob seemed to scale back slightly on the open-mouth posing. Wait, no. He didn’t. This is mitigated however by a gorgeous Kristen standing beside him. Yum. She’s my new Samantha Ronson.

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