After Catherine Hardwicke left Twilight 2 for whatever reason, its studio needed to think extremely carefully about her replacement.

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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You don't want to get on the wrong side of the Vatican – not only does it have the power to send you to hell, but it can also deliver quite a nasty movie review, as The Golden Compass is discovering.

The Vatican newspaper l'Osservatore Romano has launched a scathing attack aimed at The Golden Compass, and what it calls the movie's "cold and hopeless world." Quite what the Vatican's problem is with The Golden Compass, a movie about shifty-eyed bishops trying to kill children that may as well be called All Catholics Smell Of Bumholes, we don't know. But when you go and see The Golden Compass, just you remember that it isn't really the Pope's cup of tea. He much prefers Piss Crazy Lesbian Sluts 2, you see, and says it's a high watermark of the piss crazy lesbian slut genre. Or something. Possibly.

Pick a failed film. Any failed film. At random, let's choose Catwoman. Catwoman failed abysmally, and you know why? Because at no point did Halle Berry hawk up a furball shaped like a crucifix or look directly at the camera and say, "Bishops. Now they're a bunch of wankers."

Because if she had, The Vatican would have laid into Catwoman and given it enough extra publicity to make it a success. It has a history of that, you see – when the Vatican got angry at Madonna for crucifying herself in a concert, the tour went on to earn more money than any female tour before it. The Vatican tutted when Kanye West dressed up as Jesus, and he's now one of the biggest stars on the planet. And then the Vatican laid into Harry Potter, only to create such a success that people actually paid to see Harry Potter get naked and stab a load of horses in the eyes with a big metal spike.

The point is that whenever the Vatican gets on its high horse about something, it just makes people want to see it more. It even made a commercial success of The Da Vinci Code with its bitching, and anything that can make people watch a film starring a man with a haircut that dire deserves some kind of awe at least.

And now the Vatican has turned its sights onto The Golden Compass, the new movie starring Nicole Kidman as a woman whose soul has taken the form of Donald Trump's haircut. Based on the first book of Philip Pullman's His Dark Materials trilogy, The Golden Compass is about a world ruled by evil bishopy people and polar bears that punch each others' jaws off. It's probably the bishop bit that the Vatican didn't enjoy so much, in honesty.

Perhaps fearful that the movie will encourage youngsters to read the more explicitly anti-Catholic book that it's based on, the Vatican newspaper l'Osservatore Romano has waded in and criticised The Golden Compass to kingdom come. According to the paper:

"It's a film that leaves one cold, because it brings with it the coldness and the desperation of rebellion, solitude and individualism… In the world of Pullman, hope simply doesn't exist, in part because there is no salvation but only personal, individualistic capacity to control the situation and dominate events… The spectator of this film, if he is honest and gifted with a critical spirit, will feel no particular emotion, except for a great coldness — which is not only due to the polar scenes." 

That's where the Vatican is wrong, though. We left The Golden Compass with quite a strong emotion, actually – we were a bit narked that we'd paid to see a film that didn't even have a proper ending. 

But anyway, now that the Pope and his mates have waded in with their opinion it's inevitable that more and more people will end up going to see The Golden Compass. Maybe even enough of them to convince producers to turn the other two books into movies as well. You know, including the one where the main characters go up to heaven and actually kill God.

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Vatican blasts "Golden Compass" as Godless and hopeless – Reuters 

Anybody revelling in the recent revival of the epic fantasy flick and expecting similar repercussions with The Golden Compass will be pretty unnerved by the shoddy results on display here.

While we, at first, put down our relentless fidgeting, itching, scratching and belching to poor seating arrangement, we quickly came to realise that it wasn't the chair causing our discomfort, it was this strange, manky moving cinematic sludge glaring before us.     

While we have yet to digest the source material, Chris Weitz's treatment of Philip Pullman's fantasy novel makes it appear that the original story must have been pretty illegible, and we mean that in the most full-on, in-your-face patronising way possible.

Well, you see it's all about a parallel universe, where people have demons (or is that Daemons?) that follow you around in the form of friendly animals, also there's this mystical and magical golden compass that can unearth the truth and then there's the fierce but trustworthy Gyptians and mean and nasty Gobblers? – oh cobblers! How on earth are we poor Pullman virgins supposed to master such mind-bending terminology when it's dished out so half-heartedly in a manner of seconds through lazily rendered prologue?

Never mind, it's sometimes the cast that counts! Daniel Craig, Nicole Kidman, Sir Ian McKellen, Christopher Lee… urm where they go? One critic complained ruefully that there are other actors besides McKellan and Lee that can be summoned up for these fantasy epic parts. Well did we blink and miss something? We're sure that McKellan only 'appeared' in voice form (vocaling a grumpy, once triumphant polar bear). And that poor old Lee was demoted to a glorified background artiste role in a five-second scene.

As for the lead roles, Craig presumably got bored, saw Eva Green (who plays good witch Serafina Pekkala by the way), got all nostalgic about Casino Royale, snatched her broomstick and jetted off to start filming his latest 007 adventure. Good job too as he's hardly allowed to imprint a mark here. And Nicole Kidman goes so icy at the limbs trying to out-do Michelle Pfeiffer in Stardust that she doesn't really register on the proverbial compass at all.      

So who's around to guide us through this murky, occasionally well-rendered spectacle then? A sweet, feisty, characterless 12-year-old girl named Lyra Belacqua (played by Dakota Blue Richards) that's who! Thank heavens, then, for Sam Elliott, that weathered, unmistakable 63 year old 'cowboy type' character actor with those deep commanding tones, trademark handlebar moustache and penetrating eyes. When he shows up he commands our attention and, for a time at least, saves the sagging spectacle from utter debauchery.  

After one literally jaw-dropping scene between two duelling polar bears (the other voiced by Ian McShane), Golden Compass begins to pick up a little momentum and excitement before completely deluding us and ending anti-climatically, supposedly left for the second instalment to pick up the pieces. Shame, as we were just starting to get over our fidgeting condition.   

[story by Oliver Pfeiffer] 

Since Christmas 2007 doesn't have a Harry Potter or a Narnia or a Lord Of The Rings, the wintry epic title this year goes to The Golden Compass – but how did it do at the weekend box office?

It did alright. Ish. We suppose. For a festive family fantasy blockbuster with a budget of $180 million, The Golden Compass managed to top the US weekend box office, but only by taking a relatively paltry $26 million. The Golden Compass' failure to ignite the weekend box office any more than, say, Flubber or S.W.A.T will be a disappointment to many, but a timely reminder that there's only a certain amount of dads in the world able to convince their children to see a movie just because Nicole Kidman wears a tight gold dress for about three minutes in it.

The Golden Compass is enjoying a slightly pyrrhic victory at the US weekend box office today, because – although it's number one, it's got a slightly disappointing gross. So why has The Golden Compass underperformed at the box office? Is it because the movie's anti-Catholic sensibilities has alienated its key audience? Is it because rumours got out that the movie had to go through extensive reshoots because it was originally quite rubbish? Or was it because films about polar bears punching each others' jaws off isn't everyone's idea of a lovely Christmas movie?

One thing's for sure – this weekend box office haul will be disappointing to The Golden Compass' studio, which is now stuck with a loss-making franchise to complete. There's an obvious way around this, though – the series' dramatic climax, where the main characters murder the central God figure in his tower high above the clouds can be downscaled to a scene of Daniel Craig kicking a tramp in the nuts. Same thing really. Here's this week's US weekend box office top five…

1 - The Golden Compass (Part of The Golden Compass' appeal is that things in its universe are slightly out of line with what we'd expect. For instance, naughty children are sent to an arctic wasteland in The Golden Compass, where in this universe Jeremy Clarkson just picks them up and shakes them around a bit) $26,125,000

2 – Enchanted (Soon to be involved in a hard-fought weekend box office battle with Alvin And The Chipmunks for the title of Most Adorable Animated Movie Rodent. Since the character in Enchanted doesn't eat clumps of its own shit in the trailer, though, we're going to call the Enchanted rodent the early favourite) $10,706,000

3 – This Christmas (Like Last Christmas by Wham, but much longer and less likely to go onto bum men in hedges or fall asleep at the wheel of its car) $5,000,000

4 - Fred Claus (Fred Claus' continued inability to do very well at the US weekend box office proves one very important thing. That, um, it probably isn't very good) $4,660,000

5 - Beowulf (Beowulf's success at the weekend box office means that Ray Winstone's older films might do better with some CGI treatment to make him look better. First to be given this makeover is Nil By Mouth, in the hope that more people will go and see it because, although Ray Winstone will still domestically abuse Kathy Burke in a series of harrowingly bleak scenes, Winstone will have a bit more of a six-pack and Burke will look exactly like Angelina Jolie) $4,400,000

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Weekend Box Office – Box Office Mojo