thetwilightsaga.com has a exclusive image from the Twilight: Director’s Notebook, and they are also asking for your question to Catherine Hardwicke.

To celebrate the release of her new book, Catherine Hardwicke will answer some of your questions about making the Twilight movie right here on thetwilightsaga.com. Click here to email her your questions. Please note, we’ll only be able to take questions until tomorrow (March 3rd) at noon EST. Come back on March 17th to see Catherine’s answers!

Still thirsty for more? Check out Stephenie Meyer’s webpage (www.stepheniemeyer.com) on Friday for another exclusive image from Twilight: Director’s Notebook.

Despite being offered a huge sum of money to come onboard, Catherine Hardwicke decided not to direct “Twilight” sequel “New Moon.” The director told Entertainment Weekly that she didn’t want to make the film under the deadline and budget restraints that would have been placed on her for the follow-up, reports the Associated Press.

She recalls being at dinner with “Twilight” stars Kristen Stewart and Robert Pattinson in Paris when she got the call from Summit Entertainment, which offered her “more money than I or anyone in my family has ever seen.”

But, she added that with the payday came tight budget restraints and deadlines. “I was devastated,” said Hardwick, who will release her book “Twilight: Director’s Notebook” in March. “I really did feel a strong connection to the people around the world that liked the movie, and to Stephenie and the actors. But I just didn’t think I could make a good movie under those circumstances.”

Read full article here.

EW have an exclusive sneak peek of the ‘Twilight Diary’ in their new issue.

Hardwicke has given EW an exclusive first peek at Twilight: Director’s Notebook, which looks less like a diary than a scrapbook, studded with drawings, makeup and wardrobe notes, storyboards, lists, sketches, photos, and all kinds of odd nuggets of information (did you know Rob was first tricked out with hair extensions to give him his trademark look)? Hardwicke’s publisher will only allow us to put two pages online, so to see the rest, you’ll have to pick up a copy of the Feb. 20 issue of EW.

Hardwicke told EW that although she was “devastated” to not be directing New Moon—“I really did feel a strong connection to Stephenie and the actors” —she simply couldn’t do it under the terms Summit set forth, with a limited budget and strict timetable. The book is her smart, funny farewell, its margins full of her doodlings and ideas.

Read more

Seth has updated Stephenie’s site with some really cool news!

Exciting news for fans of Twilight the movie! Little, Brown will be publishing Twilight: Director’s Notebook written by Catherine Hardwicke. It will be released on March 17th. This intimate look on making the movie will include inside secrets on everything from casting to wardrobe along with personal notes from Catherine and behind-the-scenes photographs. Click here to read the press release on our movie page and here to read Entertainment Weekly’s article. [Please note: I have not been able to find anyone who is accepting pre-orders for the book, but I will post a link as soon as I find it somewhere.]

–Seth

Catherine Hardwicke talks to the Telegraph about forbidden love.

Empire Online has new great interviews with Robert Pattinson, Kristen Stewart and Catherine Hardwicke. Click on “Read full article” to watch the other videos.

Read full article.

The LATimes has a list of Best & Worst 2008: Most shocking headlines, and Catherine leaving is part of it:

Catherine Hardwicke leaves ‘ Twilight’ franchise

Fans and studio execs alike were nervous that the film adaptation of the first of Stephenie Meyers’ beloved teen vampire novels would fail to satisfy her devoted and fiercely protective fan base. When the film satisfied both fans and non-fans alike, everyone breathed a sigh of relief and began to eagerly anticipate the already green-lighted sequel, “New Moon.” So it was a real stake in the hearts of many fans to hear that director Catherine Hardwicke and Summit Entertainment were parting ways and that a new director would be brought in for “New Moon” (”Golden Compass” director Chris Weitz). To make matters worse for Hardwicke, who seemed more than happy to ride the undead gravy train to its conclusion, the announcement of her departure was made just as she was preparing to promote the movie overseas.

Source & more of the list.

As the future of the franchise hangs in the balance, and the fanbase splinters into various camps, we’ve set aside some cool news that should hopefully return a smile to the faces of Stephenie Meyer fans. It’s part three of what would become Hardwicke’s last in-depth interview as the “Twilight” captain. Following on the heels of her discussing record-setting box-office numbers and “New Moon” hopes, we bring you brand-new details about Hardwicke’s final “Twilight” effort: the much-anticipated DVD.

“We just did the commentary,” Hardwicke grinned when she came to visit our studio right after “Twilight” opened, revealing that she had spent time in an audio booth with stars Robert Pattinson and Kristen Stewart that very morning. “We were like, ‘Is this the lamest commentary ever?’ We were just laughing! I was thinking, ‘Should we do something really serious with myself and the stunt guy and special-effects people and show aspiring filmmakers how we did those special effects?’ But nope. We did the giggle version. [Rob and Kristen were] remembering the funny stuff that happened and the crazy stuff. They make fun of how they look in the movie.“

View video and read the rest of the interview here.

Summit gave a press release yesterday at night, saying that Catherine will not be the director of New Moon.

Los Angeles, CA, December 7, 2008 – Summit Entertainment and director Catherine Hardwicke jointly announced today that the filmmaker will not be directing the next installment in the newly minted TWILIGHT film franchise. Summit’s targeted end of 2009 or early 2010 release of the film, NEW MOON, does not work with Ms. Hardwicke’s required prep time to bring her vision of the film to the big screen. Thus as has been done before with many successful film franchises, the studio will employ a new director for NEW MOON.

“I am sorry that due to timing I will not have the opportunity to direct NEW MOON,” said Hardwicke. “Directing TWILIGHT has been one of the great experiences of my life, and I am grateful to the fans for their passionate support of the film. I wish everyone at Summit the best with the sequel– it is a great story.”

“Catherine did an incredible job in helping us to launch the TWILIGHT franchise and we thank her for all of her efforts and we very much hope to work with her on future Summit projects,” said Erik Feig, Summit’s President of Production. “We as a studio have a mandate to bring the next installment in the franchise to the big screen in a timely fashion so that fans can get more of Edward, Bella and all of the characters that Stephenie Meyer has created. We are able to pursue an aggressive time frame as we have the luxury of only adapting the novels into screenplays as opposed to having to create a storyline from scratch.”

We’ve added the first pictures of Robert, Kristen and Catherine at the Presentation of Twilight in Munich, German. We are trying to find more pictures, and we will update this post as soon as we find.
Thanks Miriam for the tip
EDIT: We replaced 3 pictures for HQ, untagged. And added more 08.
EDIT2: More 07 pictures added. Thanks to Nadine
EDIT3: More 15 pictures added.

[x35] Presentation of Twilight in Munique, German