Catherine Hardwicke Fired!?!?

Twilight director Catherine Hardwicke has been fired and won’t be returning to helm the sequel, reports Deadline Hollywood.

Sources reveal the acclaimed Thirteen director, “was difficult and irrational during the making of Twilight.” The franchise, which has already accrued $160+ million, headlined Robert Pattinson and Kristen Stewart.

The film studio, Summit Entertainment, has started preparing the sequel New Moon and to contain costs, they are considering making third book Eclipse back to back.

WHAT DO YOU THINK of the firing of Hardwicke? Will you still see New Moon?

UPDATE: The movie studio has released the following statement: “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.”