as said by perez

Director Catherine Hardwicke won't be coming back to do the Twilight sequel, New Moon, according to Variety.

It was a timing issue, says the report.

The studio wants to rush the movie out in 2009 and wasn't willing to give Hardwicke the time that she wanted to develop the sequel script.

In a statement, Hardwicke said, "I am sorry that due to timing I will not have the opportunity to direct 'New Moon'. 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."

And the studio issued this statement, "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. 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."

No one's getting in the way of pumping money out (as quickly as possible!) of the Twilight machine!

But, Miz Hardwick walks away with this amazing feat — she delivered the biggest opening weekend ever for a woman with Twilight. Congrats!