SOURCE: 'Twilight' Sequel Offer From Summit Out To Director Chris Weitz

UPDATES Who Should Direct ‘Twilight’ Sequels?

Yes, he’s had tremendous success working with tweens and teens (About A Boy as director and writer, American Pie as producer and uncredited director). But Chris Weitz also did The Golden Compass (as writer and director), and my source says Summit Entertainment liked the look of that even if it didn’t heat up the domestic box office (but did better overseas). I don’t have official confirmation yet that this Twilight sequel offer has gone out to Weitz. But my insider says another reason it came down is because Weitz and Summit’s president of production Eric Feig are longtime pals. The source tells me Weitz is “still considering” the offer to helm New Moon and possibly also Eclipse if the sequel and threequel movie adaptations of Stephenie Meyer’s series of vampire books are made back-to-back. But let’s also not forget Weitz’s behavior on Golden Compass. On December 15, 2004, Weitz announced his resignation as director of the trilogy, citing the enormous technical challenges of the epic and later admitting he was worried about dissing by the book’s fans. After another helmer came on and then walked off, Weitz returned to direct saying he’d done “a lot of growing in the interim”. Despite all that, Summit seems willing to put its first valuable franchise in his hands. Not so with Twilight director Catherine Hardwicke who’s off the sequel for a whole host of reasons I reported that fall under the “difficult” category. Sexism, anyone?