Twilight New Moon Movie can be Released by 2009! Plus new director, rumors about New Moon Casting, etc

Good news everyone! According to this Twilight New Moon Movie article by MTV, the movie is set to be released by the end of 2009 or early 2010.

In case you haven't heard, Twilight Director Catherine Hardwicke has been replaced by Golden Compass director, Chris Weitz, for the 2nd installment of the extremely popular vampire series. The reason? It seems that Catherine could not do the movie based on the expected target date, which is quite confusing for me because just a few days before announcing the replacement, MTV featured an interview with Hardwicke, where she said that she could finish New Moon by 2009. Anyway, Chris Weitz seems to be quite excited to direct the film, and he even made a letter to the fans here:

Chris Weitz's letter to Twilight fans

As for casting rumors, Vanessa Hudgens has not been targeted for the role of the spitfire wolf, Leah Clearwater. Phew. I have nothing against Vanessa but I don't think she can handle the role of the complicated lady wolf that is Leah. Especially once they start filming Breaking Dawn.

There is one girl called Skyla Solomon who is vying for the role. You can see this myspace for more details:

Skyla Solomon myspace

I have yet to see any official news stating that she has won the role yet. And, as I have stated earlier, Taylor Lautner is, in fact, keeping his role as Jacob Black.

The success of New Moon will certainly hinge greatly on Taylor Lautner. This means that 1) He has to look like he's aged and has had a major growth spurt. Think Steven Strait :x 2) He has to show us the pain and helplessness he feels as he transitions into something else, as well as show his fierce short temper once he goes wolf-mode. 3) He also has to show us how sweet he can be to Bella.

We didn't see much acting coming from Taylor on the first movie, because he was just the timid, happy, La Push kid in Twilight, so I am really excited to see how Taylor steps up to the Jacob Black centric movie that is New Moon.

While there isn't much New Moon material out there yet, try checking out this wonderful fan-made trailer someone did:



It's quite nicely made. Very clean, and she was creative enough to get scenes from other Kristen Stewart movies that were appropriate to the New Moon. A bonus for me is that she used Steven Strait in her trailer (it should be getting very obvious to all you readers that I am in love with Strait), which is perfect based on the whole aging, maturity thing. Besides, if she used Taylor in the trailer, she'd get less material (Would you like Shark boy scenes placed into the trailer??). Anyway, enjoy watching and I guess all we can do now is count down the months!

Oh, and just an additional thing I saw on one of the blogs that made me lol:



I don't know who made this but it is quite funny and creative. If you were the one who made it, comment in my blog and I will gladly credit you. Or if you want me to remove it from this blog, I will do so to.

Stay tuned for more New Moon Movie updates! And if you haven't read Twilight book 5 yet I suggest you do so!