After I broke the news yesterday that Catherine Hardwicke has been voted off the island by Summit Entertainment for Twilight’s sequel New Moon and possibly back-to-back threequel Eclipse, comments started flooding into DHD with suggestions on who should take her place. It’s even caught the attention of Summit, I’m told. Given the studio’s speeded-up schedule for the Twilight franchise, the choice needs to be made ASAP. Here are the names so far, with one mentioned many more times than the others (and for good reason). Find out who it is by reading to the end:

Pro: “Back in the day, Kathryn Bigelow gave us a wonderful little vampire film called Near Dark. Maybe someone should give her a call. Con: Great, hire Katherine Bigelow – then you can have a bloody action film, directed by an equally difficult, never cries female director, with no sense of humor and absolutely no idea what teenage girls think and feel”.

Pro: “Go after Brett Ratner for New Moon. He’ll pump up this lame material, Give it some pizazz.” Con: “Oooo, how about Brett Ratner. He knows what 12-year-old girls want.”

“I hope they get Sofia Coppola. … Hello, Academy Award winning female director.”

“Get Paul Morrison to direct the film. He worked with Rob Pattinson on the Dali/Lorca film Little Ashes. It had a tiny budget but he turned in a wonderful film.”

Pro: “Where’s Joss Whedon when you need him?” “Who has more experience with teenage vampires than Joss? Con: Or do you think he wants to keep his vampire prowess relegated to Buffy and not mess with another vampire world?”

“Joe Wright from Pride and Prejudice?”

“What is Jane Campion doing?”

“Do you go TV and recruit David Nutter?”

“I’m crossing my fingers they get someone like Niki Caro, who made Whale Rider look like a million bucks.”

“Oh, for christ’s sake…if this is about needing the director to be female, have Nicole Holofcener both write the script for and direct New Moon… she can turn it into a sermon about class warfare.”

“Or, bring Lisa Cholodenko on board for some hot girl-on-girl action…”

“Or, Penelope Spheeris. She can make it a punk-rock opera…”

“Or, Amy Heckerling if there’s gonna be talking babies.”

“If you want to see what a real director can do, check out Christopher Nolan, or Matt Reitman if you want an example with a small budget like this movie had.”

“I would love to see Jonathan Frakes direct New Moon. I loved how he directed/photographed/nurtured the star-crossed love story in Roswell, the television series.”

And the winner is… ALFONSO CUARON. Not surprising since he’s a Harry Potter veteran, and the Twilight fan base is nearly one and the same. “I would like to see a director like Alfonso Cuaron or someone of that caliber tackle New Moon/Eclipse .” Pro: “Alfonso Cuaron, FTW. He would be amazing.” “I have one name for Summit as a replacement: Alfonso Cuaron. (He did Y Tu Mama Tambien as well as Harry Potter And The Prisoner Of Azkaban.” ”I would like to suggest Summit use Mr. Alfonzo Cuaron, who is very good at working with young people (i.e. Harry Potter) and is able to pull a good performance out of young inexperienced actors.” Con: “And whoever suggested Alfonso Cuaron.  If he were signed on and did to New Moon what he did to Prizoner of Azkaban… I COULD SCREAM!!!! He DESIMATED [sp] my favorite book in that series. Let’s not let him destroy another successful franchise PLEASE.”

Editor-in-Chief Nikki Finke - tip her here.

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