After all, the Twilight 2 director would need to be adept at dealing with teenagers, understanding the romantic pull of the source text and – most importantly – be able to follow the lead of the first movie by creating an expansive fantasy book adaptation that ends up as a horribly unintelligible mess that nobody could ever genuinely be proud of.

And that’s why the director of Twilight 2 has been announced as Chris Weitz, the director of The Golden Compass. Clever move, movie studio, clever move.

Everyone was a little bit stunned when it was announced that Twilight director Catherine Hardwicke wasn’t going to direct Twilight 2, not least Catherine Hardwicke herself, we’d imagine. Nobody knows for sure why Hardwicke was moved off the Twilight sequel, but it appears that it could be one of the following:

1 - Catherine Hardwicke wanted some preparation time for Twilight 2 and the studio just wanted it pumped out as quickly as possible before the fad blows over.

2 - The success of Twilight sent Catherine Hardwicke into the raging depths of egomania, and she refused to direct the sequel unless she was taken to and from the set in a golden Cinderella carriage and the movie was renamed Catherine Hardwicke’s Twilight 2.

3 - Catherine Hardwicke has breasts and a vagina, which is generally looked down upon in Hollywood.

But, for whatever reason, it left an empty director’s chair on the Twilight 2 set, and one that needed to be filled before someone else decided to adapt a wishy-washy conservative doctrine disguised as a teenage fantasy epic into a movie and stole its glory. And that meant that Twilight’s studio Summit Entertainment couldn’t dilly-dally.

It had to pick a new director fast. Any director. Even if that director had recently made a notoriously bad movie adaptation of a famous children’s fantasy book and was therefore probably the least qualified movie director on the face of the planet to take it on. Which is just as well, because it’s picked Chris Weitz to direct Twilight 2, and he directed The Golden Compass, for God’s sake. The Hollywood Reporter reports:

Chris Weitz has been tapped to helm “New Moon,” the sequel to Summit Entertainment’s vampire breakout “Twilight.” [Stephenie] Meyer penned a letter that sought to calm fans nervous about the midstream switch. “I’m sad that Catherine is not continuing on with us for ‘New Moon,’ she wrote in a letter on her Web site, but then noted that, with Weitz: “Torches and pitchforks aren’t going to be necessary.”

Oh come on, Stephanie Meyer, all this public hand-wringing really isn’t necessary – you know as well as we do that Twilight 2 could be about nothing more than Robert Pattinson trimming his nasal hair and all your ridiculous female 14-year-old fans would scream themselves hoarse and lose all control of their bladders by the middle of the first act.

Anyway, even though he’s the director of a notoriously underperforming children’s fantasy book, we’re positive that Chris Weitz will be a perfect director for Twilight 2. Having co-directed American Pie with his brother, Chris Weitz knows teenagers inside out, and therefore there’s bound to be a scene of Kirsten Stewart whacking herself off with a musical instrument in it somewhere.

And Chris Weitz will obviously get the most out of Twilight 2’s young cast – especially Robert Pattinson. Weitz has worked with Nicole Kidman, remember, so he’s well-experienced when it comes to directing charisma-free actors who only have one facial expression but are still somehow bewilderingly thought of as attractive.

Most of all, though, we can totally see the logic in letting Chris Weitz direct Twilight 2. Look at it this way – if he can take a children’s book that’s actually quite good and turn it into a pointless car-crash of a movie that everyone hates, then he should be able to take a rubbishy car-crash book and turn it into something quite good.

That’s how it works, right?

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The first one of these is undoubtedly a good thing, and the third one at least distracts from the nagging sensation that Robert Pattinson is basically an even-less charismatic Orlando Bloom with better hair, but the second one? That could well be a problem.

So, to try and make Twilight 2 less rubbish, it’s been announced that Twilight director Catherine Hardwicke has been bumped out of the way to let someone else have a bash at the sequel. Which is, um, news. We think.

Twilight – the book and movie series that makes people sorry they ever slagged off Harry Potter – can’t be stopped at the moment. It’s still riding high at the box office, its Fisher Price Columbine soundtrack is still making 14-year-old girls feel deeper than they actually are and Twilight star Robert Pattinson is still the heart-throb pin-up of the moment – a role he’ll enjoy until he goes bald and everyone realises that his skull is shaped like seven spanners in a deflated balloon.

However, if there’s one thing that can be said about Twilight, it’s that it was rubbish. Unstoppably, majestically rubbish. It didn’t matter, of course – cinema ushers still have to scrub the 14-year-old urine out of the seats after every showing – but that’s mainly because nobody has ever invented a 14-year-old girl who wasn’t an idiot.

Metacritic gave Twilight 56%, while Rottentomatoes was slightly less forgiving, awarding it 55% – the same as huge hits like Vacancy and Ocean’s Twelve – and that was no good for Twilight’s studio. They didn’t want to make a hokey abstinence-promoting emo film about nothing – they wanted to make art.

So who should Twilight’s rubbishness be blamed on? The actors? Stephenie Meyer, the woman who wrote the poxy thing to begin with? The cloth-eared dickface who decided to put Paramore on the Twilight soundtrack? No. It looks like the blame is being laid at the feet of Catherine Hardwicke, Twilight’s director.

Despite being the woman who, just a few short weeks ago, gleefully announced Twilight 2 to the world, it’s just been revealed that the movie has been snatched away from Hardwicke and will be directed by someone else. Reuters reports:

Hardwicke had until recently been thought a candidate to direct the sequel but word began to circulate in the industry that her relationship with series producer Summit Entertainment has not always been smooth. On Sunday, Summit confirmed that Hardwicke would not direct the film, saying in a statement that its plans to release the film in late 2009 or early 2010 did not mesh with Hardwicke’s required prep time.

OK, we take back all that stuff about art. It seems like Catherine Hardwicke has been shoved out of the way of Twilight 2 because she wants to take her time and make the adaptation the best it can be, while Summit is just crapping itself about getting all four Twilight movies released before its audience hits 20 and suddenly realises what an unmitigated pile of nonsense the whole thing is.

So who’s going to direct Twilight 2? Well, given the time constraints, the pro-religious subtext, the fact that Catherine Hardwicke directed a movie about baby Jesus once and the way that only someone really desperate for work would seriously consider directing it, there’s only really one option.

You heard us. The ‘Mel Gibson for Twilight 2‘ campaign starts here.

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It all make so much sense now – if you’d just spent several months making a family drama that nobody’s going to watch, and had to do it in the presence of Billy Ray Cyrus, getting tanked up on prescription medicine and parking your car in the middle of a busy motorway would seem like a perfectly sensible thing to do, too.

And now Heather Locklear has been arrested for DUI after allegedly doing exactly that, the director of this new movie has spoken out. Jim Amatuilli thinks that Heather Locklear’s DUI arrest is ’sad’, especially since it followed Heather’s ’solid’ work on the movie. Solid? That’s the best adjective he could drum up in her greatest hour of need? No wonder Heather Locklear went mental. And that’s not any solid. That’s solid compared to Billy Ray Cyrus. Honestly, next time just go for the more sympathetic ‘Oh, just kill yourself already,’ Jim.

Following Heather Locklear’s DUI arrest this weekend – and the accompanying mugshot that makes her look like she’s just been expelled from clown school – the race is on to uncover exactly what caused her problems in the first place.

On the surface it seems simple – Heather Locklear went to rehab and allegedly tried to kill herself because her alcoholic husband left her for her best friend. Essentially it’s an episode of Jeremy Kyle, but with better teeth.

However, if you ask Jim Amatuilli – the director of Heather Locklear’s new movie which co-stars Billy Ray Cyrus that we’re not even going to name because you’re not going to watch it anyway – then there’s another reason for Heather Locklear appearing to get shitfaced on prescription drugs and stopping her car in the middle of a state highway for no reason.

And that’s that she’s, you know, getting old and stuff. Jim Amatuilli told the New York Daily News:

“It is very easy to see the effects of the ‘show-biz’ environment, and the stress it puts on relationships and families. Add to that the pressure that women face as they get older and roles narrow, with so much ‘value’ put on superficial elements, it’s sad to watch the results play out.”

You hear that, Heather Locklear? Jim Amatuilli speaks the truth. And we agree with him – you now have three options to get yourself back on the right track:

1 - Get a proper job.

2 - Go back in time and dedicate yourself to learning your craft instead of just coasting by on a series of mindlessly trashy roles that you were only offered because you looked half-decent in a bikini and the producers all thought that you might let them have a go on your fanny if they booked you.

3 - Realise that your ageing face grows a new flaw every day, and commit yourself to a merciless lifetime of constant plastic surgery procedures that – while possibly convincing someone standing far away that you superficially look quite young – will remove all trace of your character, gradually warp you into a freakish featureless splotch and ensure that you only get picked to star in films like The Perpetually Unhappy Walking Scar From The Planet Botox in the future.

Either one’s fine.

Isn’t it? It isn’t? In fact Kenneth Branagh would probably be one of the last people you’d associate with something that brawny and gormless? Well tell that to Marvel, because they’re currently in talks with Kenneth Branagh about their new Thor movie. In short, Kenneth Branagh wants to direct Thor.

Kenneth Branagh directing a summertime comic book movie like Thor might sound slightly ridiculous, but the idea has potential – with any luck Branagh will turn Thor into a cross between his modern-day romantic musical interpretation of Love’s Labour Lost and that Frankenstein movie where he made Robert De Niro dress up like Sloth from The Goonies and run around the north pole. Ace!

You know what? We’re really starting to dislike Christopher Nolan. Comic book movies used to be so simple – there’d be a superhero and he’d punch all the baddies and then fly around the world backwards to reverse time and that’d be the end. But then Christopher bloody Nolan had to come along and make everything clever. Thanks a lot, Nolan.

Now that Christopher Nolan has managed to make The Dark Knight both intelligent and massive profitable, everyone’s clamouring to get highbrow arthouse directors to helm their comic book movies. And the logical conclusion of that is Kenneth Branagh directing a comic book movie about a Norse God who looks like a fan fiction version of an Iron Maiden music video and runs around New York with a massive hammer, getting magical powers by eating golden apples.

Which, somewhat bewilderingly, is probably going to happen. Before Marvel can make its long-awaited Avengers movie – starring Robert Downey Jr as Iron Man, possibly Will Smith as Captain America and whoever Edward Norton’s less stroppy Incredible Hulk replacement is – it needs to make a Thor film.

And who better to do it than Kenneth Branagh, the man responsible for directing five Shakespeare adaptations, something about a magical flute and a remake of Sleuth that somehow made people hate Jude Law even more than they already did, even though they didn’t think it was physically possible. Variety reports:

Kenneth Branagh is negotiating to direct “Thor,” the next Marvel Comics property that will be turned into a live-action film by Marvel Studios. Pic will be released in 2010. Marvel Studios chief Kevin Feige’s choice of Branagh is surprising, as Branagh hasn’t really directed an action-heavy film since his debut on “Henry V,” a bloody telling of the British king’s conquest of France.

Now the easiest thing to do here is knee-jerk, since Kenneth Branagh is mainly known for making mimsying wordy films for English literature teachers and Thor sounds pretty much like it might just be the most berserk film ever made.

But let’s give this idea a chance. After all, if Kenneth Branagh can bring some of the fire and intensity of his acting to Thor, and then add some of the highbrow thoughtfulness of his previously-directed movies, the film could be a winner. And, who knows, it might even inspire some other intellectual movie directors to try their hand at more shamelessly commercial fare.

Whatever next? Ang Lee making an Incredible Hulk movie? Aha hahaha ha.

Oh.

It’s been a long time coming, but finally New Line Cinema and Metro-Goldwyn-Mayer Studios have announced that they’re packing Guillermo del Toro off to New Zealand for the next four years so he can concentrate on making The Hobbit and its sequel, The Hobbit 2: The Hobbit In Space.

It doesn’t take a genius to see why Guillermo del Toro was chosen to direct the Hobbit movies – his flair for visual invention as demonstrated in Pan’s Labyrinth and Hellboy will really bring a sense of panache to his task of filming a bunch of midgets walking across the side of a mountain for six and a half titting hours.

There’s no doubting that the Lord Of The Rings trilogy was a landmark piece of cinema that moved the artform of self-indulgent, needlessly-overlong, self-important wankery that gave you deep vein thrombosis in your face just by making you watch it on by years, if not decades.

So it was inevitable that JRR Tolkien’s other book, The Hobbit, would get turned into a movie as well. It would have happened sooner but Peter Jackson had a fight with the studio and then everyone made up except that Peter Jackson decided he wanted to devote his time to making painfully long movies about dragons or something instead, so a new director of The Hobbit had to be found.

Finding the right director was a hard task, because whoever was chosen to make The Hobbit had to a) stay true to JRR Tolkien’s original vision, b) pad the story out enough to turn it into two movies so that everyone could get twice as rich from it and c) move to New Zealand, The Prettiest Place To Die Of Utter Fucking Mind-Shredding Boredom On Earth.

And while the early favourite to direct The Hobbit was Guillermo del Toro of Pan’s Labyrinth fame, nothing was made official. Until now, as Reuters reports:

Del Toro, whose credits include “Pan’s Labyrinth” and “Blade II,” will move to New Zealand for the next four years to work on both “Hobbit” films with executive producer Peter Jackson, who directed all three “The Lord of the Rings” movies, according to New Line Cinema and Metro-Goldwyn-Mayer Studios… “We have long admired Guillermo’s work and cannot think of a more inspired filmmaker to take the journey back to Middle-earth,” Jackson and his producing partner, Fran Walsh, said in a statement.

So, with filming set to begin next year, it’s full steam ahead for Guillermo del Toro as he makes all sorts of difficult decisions about The Hobbit. Will Ian McKellan return as Gandalf? Who will play Bilbo Baggins? Will del Toro be tied to the visual style of the Lord Of The Rings movies or will he be allowed to make it his own? Will the movie have one ending or will he follow Lord Of The Rings and film 38 different endings and then make everyone sit through them all one after the other for three extra hours when all they want to do it go to the toilet?

In 2010 we’ll find out, by being thumped on the head with The Hobbit marketing campaigns for months before it even comes out until we feel like we’re terrible people if we don’t see it. Then we’ll find out alright.

Read more:

Mexico’s del Toro to direct “The Hobbit” – Reuters

Such is our affection for the genre, indeed, that we've been trying for several years to get our own version of Purple Rain off the ground. It's a lot more literal than the original – in fact, the movie features no original studio recordings by Prince, and simply features a shower attachment fixed to our office sink and filmed through a purple filter, while in the background a climate expert chats about the devastating wrongness an actual shower of coloured rain would imply. On the plus side, though, the movie features no original studio recordings by Prince.

Someone who isn't too keen on remakes, it would seem, is director Mark Romanek. Romanek – previously best known for his 2002 film One Hour Photo, in which Robin Williams stands around a pharmacy mumbling a bit before taking some snapshots of a crying man having sex – was all set to direct Universal's upcoming 'reimagining' of horror classic The Wolfman.

Then he walked away.

With weeks to go before the shoot begins – and with that old chestnut 'creative differences' being cited – The Wolfman now looks to be in limbo, something which can't have gone down well with signed-up stars Anthony Hopkins and Benicio Del Toro.

Hopkins in particular must be wishing that all this had happened on a previous film of his, and therefore saved him the embarrassment of starring in a turkey. Something like Hannibal, for example. Or probably definitely Hannibal. Yes – Hannibal without a doubt. He must be thinking of Hannibal. Christ, Hannibal was shit.

This isn't the only Universal film to fall into a directorless trap.  State Of Play – based on the BBC drama of the same name – is theoretically ready to shoot, but just needs that all important head honcho to step behind the camera and tell stars Russell Crowe and Ben Affleck what to do.

Fear not, though – other big-budget BBC adaptations are alive and kicking, and the multi-million dollar update of Terry And June (featuring Jon Voight as both) will be hitting cinemas soon.

Read More:

Director Romanek departs "Wolfman" – Yahoo