Stick a Stake in Hardwicke, the Twilight Director’s Done

Twilight fans now have reason to hope that Edward Cullen will be even more perfect the second time around.

Summit Entertainment announced that Catherine Hardwicke, who directed the first big-screen adaptation of the Stephenie Meyer saga to middling-to-awful reviews, won't be returning to helm New Moon, the second of Meyer's four sparkling-vampire novels.

In a joint statement, Summit and Hardwicke claimed that New Moon's targeted winter 2009/spring 2010 release "does not work with Ms. Hardwicke's required prep time to bring her vision of the film to the big screen."

I'm sure Twilight's second-week box-office drop of 62 percent has nothing to do with it.

New Moon, new chance to make the vampires not look like this