The photo we used of Taylor Lautner was a bit out-of-date in our previous story about his potential role as Jacob Black, so to be fair here is a pic of Lautner looking a lot more grown-up at Hollywood & Highland on November 18, 2008 in Los Angeles while doing an in-store with Paramore.

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The band performance video of the Paramore track Decode from the Twilight Soundtrack is finally available on iTunes!

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Curious what the fan sites have to say about the news that Catherine Hardwicke has been replaced by Chris Weitz?   ReelzChannel interviewed the creators of a few of the popular sites covering the New Moon movie–including yours truly, embarrassingly enough–and here is what we had to say–

Reaction from HisGoldenEyes.com

As fansite moderators, we get to see and interact with hundreds of Twilighters every day. With that comes the chance to see what it is that they truly want. We want someone that will do the book justice, much like Catherine was able to. Chris Weitz seems like the perfect man to, not replace but rather, continue what Catherine started. Besides, if Stephenie Meyer, the queen bee herself, approves of him, who are we to say he isn’t good enough?

Reaction from Twilightlexiconblog.com

New directors are always a crap shoot for franchises. Catherine, on most counts, realistically set up the world of Forks and the Cullens. Chris gets to take over from that foundation. I think Chris is up to the job, if you take About a Boy, a project where he pretty much had total control, it was heartwarming, funny, emotional — all the things New Moon has to be. So I’m for keeping an open mind, especially now that Stephenie Meyer has given her support.

Reaction from BellaAndEdward.com

People have said that men can’t direct romance … but The Notebook is proof enough that they can. I hope Chris pays as much attention to detail as Catherine did, and that being faithful to the book remains his first priority. I personally love About A Boy, and I hope that the fans will support him as much as they supported our brilliant director of Twilight. I can’t wait to see his interpretation of the world of Bella and Edward, and let’s hope that Twilighters have a whirlwind romance with his movie, just as he did with the books.

Reaction from twilight20somethings.com

I appreciate and respect Catherine’s adaptation of Twilight, as well as her love for the fans. She has made quite an impact on the Twilight fandom as a whole. But, with Stephenie’s blessing as the torch is passed to Chris Weitz, I have faith that he will be just as devoted to the books. I only hope he can make a seamless jump into New Moon without changing the Forks we have grown to love already.

Reaction from Newmoonmovie.org

I’m optimistic. Weitz left Golden Compass as director initially because he was worried about disappointing the dedicated His Dark Materials fans. So he’s already dealt with a ravenous, tuned-in fanbase that expected a lot for the book-to-movie translation. Twilight is not an effects-packed action story, it’s a love story. He’ll need to channel his About a Boy sensitive side if he wants to please the fans.

Fansites React to News that Chris Weitz Will Direct New Moon

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Opinions are mixed on the choice of Chris Weitz as director. io9 is taking a particularly pessimistic stance and has asked “are they insane?”-

It’s not that we’re pulling for Hardwicke’s return to the franchise (despite finding the direction of Twilight one of its high points), but have Summit Entertainment’s decision makers forgotten that Weitz was the man behind the failure of The Golden Compass movie, the last pre-Twilight teen-book-phenomenon that was supposed to be the next Harry Potter? I’m not saying that the lightning of poor-choices-concerning-what-to-keep-and-what-to-cut-from-the-source-material, or even uninspired direction (un)inspiring lackluster performances from his actors, would necessarily strike again, but come on; look at the man’s resume: American Pie aside, there’s not a hit on there… nor anything to suggest that he’d bring anything interesting to the adolescent quadrology’s second chapter.

For Weitz, of course, it’s a chance to make up for his Compass failure, but for Summit, the reasoning is somewhat more obscure. Perhaps there was a lost bet involved.

Weitz did, however, direct About a Boy, which by most regards was a succesful romantic comedy. Roger Moore at the Orlando Sentinel notes that Weitz “will try to find his inner 17-year-old virgin girl. He’s managed some nice moments of empathy in his films, though you could say Golden Compass failed, at least in part, because he didn’t have a handle on the very young heroine.” Patrick Kevin Day at the LA Times has this to say–

On the one hand, Weitz has shown his skill at adapting popular modern novels for the screen — “About a Boy,” from the Nick Hornby novel, won Weitz and co-scripters Paul Weitz and Peter Hedges an Oscar nomination for best adapted screenplay. On the other hand, Weitz also directed last year’s “The Golden Compass,” which was an expensive mess that failed to capture the fan base of the books.

Our own poll indicates that fans are split almost evenly about the choice–we asked “Is Chris Weitz a good choice to direct New Moon” and so far 51% of our visitors think he is, and 49% think he is not. Now that the decision of Chris Weitz has had some time to sink in, be sure to cast your vote if you haven’t already–

Twilight Sequel Gets New Director, Plunges Towards Failure

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