Hold the phone Variety. Patrick Goldstein of the L.A. Times has put your reporting on blast. The trade confirmed the loudly growing rumor that Spanish director Juan Antonio Bayona (“The Orphanage”) was the director who had won the coveted gig of helming the third “Twilight” film titled, “Eclipse,” already set for a June 30, 2010 release.
“Wrong!” says Goldstein, always the name-dropper.
“I had lunch today with Erik Feig, who’s president of production at Summit…Feig was shocked to see the media reports saying Summit had hired Bayona, since — ahem — they’re not true.” Feig says:
“The ‘Eclipse’ directing job hasn’t been offered to Juan Antonio or anyone else. We’ve met with three or four talented filmmakers and we’ll be meeting with three or four more other candidates before we make any decision. No one has been offered the job.”
Interesting. The trades aren’t really known for jumping the gun, but in this day of rush-blog reporting Feig basically says they messed up point blank (“Nikki [Finke] never called Summit or any of the producers, and Variety ran it off her blog without calling us either, which I find doubly irresponsible”).
So that could ostenisbly mean names like Paul Weitz, Drew Barrymore and James Mangold (“3:10 To Yuma”) are still in the mix. The plot thickens. Thanks to our reader in Spain e.villanueva for the tip.
