Dakota Fanning is ready to bare her fangs as vampire Jane in the Twilight sequel New Moon.

“I really hope it works out,” Fanning, 14, told Hitfix.com while promoting her current thriller, Push. “It would be a really fantastic experience, I’m sure.”

Just last week it was reported the young star was offered the role sans audition because director Chris Weitz is so confident that Fanning is right for the part.

Talk about a perfect fit: A member of the deadly Volturi, the Jane character is described in a casting notice as a petite blonde with a “Botticelli angel-like face [and] crimson irises.”

If everything falls into place, Fanning will join returning stars Robert Pattinson, Kristen Stewart and Taylor Lautner. Filming begins in March in the U.S. and Italy, with New Moon set to open in November.

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Copon is hoping to replace Taylor Lautner as Jacob Black, while Barnes aims for mind-reading vampire Aro.

By Larry Carroll

When Bella Swan moved to Forks, Washington, she found her whole life in upheaval. The embittered teenager was forced to replace her old friends with new ones and found her everyday comforts replaced by uncertainty, doubt and fear for the future.

These days, “Twilight” fans are feeling closer to their heroine than they ever thought possible.

Following last week’s dismissal and replacement of Catherine Hardwicke, this weekend began with a press release from Summit Entertainment officially appointing “New Moon” director Chris Weitz to the job. Suspicious in its omission of Taylor Lautner, the release seemed to all but confirm Twilighter whispers that Hardwicke won’t be the last “Twilight” talent replaced before the sequel.

So where does the series go from here?

MTV News can confirm that 26-year-old “Scorpion King 2″ actor Michael Copon [pronounced "COPE-on"] is one of several actors Weitz is considering to play the new, larger Jacob Black. A representative for Copon told us that they’re making a full effort to land the high-profile gig. And in a bit of 21st-century self-publicity, the actor has even recently updated his Facebook status with messages like: “Michael Copon [is] in a Twilight Zone!” and “Michael Copon is the older Jacob Black!”

Copon’s representative confirmed to MTV News that the Facebook page is run by the actor himself and that those are indeed his words.

Approached for comment on Lautner’s omission from the “New Moon” press release, Summit confirmed that it was not a typographical error. “The casting decision in regards to the character Jacob Black has yet to be made,” a representative told MTV News.

But even once Copon (or whoever else) is officially announced as the new Jacob, Weitz still has many other key casting decisions to make and an extremely brief amount of time in which to make them. With barely 12 weeks until cameras are due to begin rolling, the “Golden Compass” filmmaker needs to find faces to portray several key characters — including the peace-keeping, Italian vampires known as the Volturi.

With the buzz building for these roles, MTV News has confirmed that 27-year-old “Chronicles of Narnia: Prince Caspian” heartthrob Ben Barnes is throwing his hat into the ring. The actor is already quite popular with the “Twilight” fanbase and shares the same manager as both Copon and “Twilight” star Cam Gigandet. Barnes is believed to be campaigning for the role of Aro, a mind-reading vampire whose “New Moon” encounter with Edward and Bella helps shape their destiny together.

Where does the “Twilight” franchise go from here? At the moment, the only person who knows is Weitz himself. Stay tuned to MTV News for the very latest on Copon, Barnes and any other names yet to emerge.

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There will be a new director atop the Twilight franchise: and he’ll be a man. Sources tell EW.com that Summit Entertainment is about to hire Chris Weitz (The Golden Compass) as the shepherd for New Moon, the second installment of Stephenie Meyer’s best-selling Twilight series. Weitz is best-known for his work with his brother Paul. The two directed and produced American Pie and then were nominated for an Academy Award for best screenplay for About a Boy, which they also co-directed. Chris’ first solo directing gig, The Golden Compass, didn’t do well stateside but was a hit internationally.

Twilight, directed by Catherine Hardwicke, has grossed more than $141 million so far, but Hardwicke had clashed with the studio during production. It was announced early this week that she would not be making New Moon. Weitz has a solid relationship with Summit’s top brass; he’s considered easy to work with and has experience with special effects. “He’s the quality-of-life-choice,” says one source. While Summit insists “we have not yet signed Chris Weitz to do New Moon,” and Weitz’s agency says no deal has been signed, other sources say the deal is imminent, and that Summit has stopped negotiations with other potential Moon directors. Summit had planned to announce this hiring decision on Sunday, Dec. 14, and could have Weitz in Vancouver, B.C. as early as Monday to start pre-production on the film.

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Catherine Hardwicke delivered the biggest opening weekend ever for a female film director—not to mention Robert Pattinson to the screaming fans—but it doesn’t look like she’ll be getting the chance to top that record with the next Twilight film.

The helmer has parted ways with the series. The story broke today on Nikki Finke’s Deadline Hollywood Daily, and by Sunday night Variety had a statement from the director.

“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.”

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EXCLUSIVE: So the rumors are true. I’ve confirmed that Summit Entertainment is taking Twilight director Catherine Hardwicke off the sequel in this big new franchise. No doubt my news will speed up the studio’s announcement, and Summit will surely scramble to spin this as all going down amicably along the lines that she “couldn’t fit the film into her time frame”. But this terrible news for Hardwicke comes just as she and the Twilight cast are on their European press tour. No doubt, tomorrow’s interviews in France will now focus entirely on what, if anything, Catherine did to deserve this treatment. This also could blow up into a scandal for Summit if it chooses a male director over Hardwicke, whose Twilight easily beat Mimi Leder’s 1998 Deep Impact box office gross as the biggest opener for a female director. That was a record embraced by Hollywood feminists as a sign of growing gal power. Now Hardwicke’s career will surely be damaged by this very public firing because, even though the pic was skewered by critics, it is already a $160M low-cost blockbuster. Summit has started preparing the sequel New Moon, based on Meyer’s second book in the series, and, to contain costs, the studio is considering making third book Eclipse back to back).

The word from inside Summit is that Hardwicke, the acclaimed Thirteen director, “was ‘difficult’ and ‘irrational’ during the making of Twilight,” one insider explains to me. “That doesn’t mean anything when you’re talking about a filmmaker because they all are, but still…” (Indeed, Joe Roth and Sony kept saying those things about Julie Taymor on Across The Universe. Yet she made a cult classic and is now directing Marvel/Sony’s Spider-Man for Broadway.) From another of my sources, “Summit didn’t like her. They’re saying the DP [director of photography] Elliot Davis is the one responsible for the film’s sumptuous visual look, that the editor Nancy Richardson had to save the film in post-production, and Summit thought Hardwicke’s [CAA] agent Beth Swofford was alternately ineffectual and hysterical [when it came to controlling her client].”

In fact, I’m told that the studio has even had quiet talks with other CAA directors for the last week. “And Swofford never told Hardwicke about that and that she was about to get kicked to the gutter,” an insider tells me. “To add insult to injury, Hardwicke can now look forward to being grilled by the press for days on end, in front of the cast, about why she’s getting shit-canned.”

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Fresh from a massive opening day for “Twilight,” Summit Entertainment has officially greenlit a “New Moon” sequel.

Summit made the widely expected announcement Saturday morning. “Twilight” generated first-day grosses of $35.7 million from 3,419 playdates on Friday — including $7 million from Thursday midnight shows.

The vampire thriller’s a ready-made franchise for Summit with four books in Stephenie Meyer’s series, which have sold more than 17 million copies worldwide.

“New Moon” is the second title in the series and is centered on Edward Cullen leaving Bella Swan in order to keep her safe from other vampires. Robert Pattinson and Kristen Stewart play the leads in the film.

“I don’t think any other author has had a more positive experience with the makers of her movie adaptation than I have had with Summit Entertainment,” Meyer said in a statement.

“Twilight” had been expected to open in the $50 million to $60 million range, although it looks likely to end up above that.

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More vampire love for Meyers books

Just when you thought your eardrums might recover from hearing the screams of Twilight fans around the world when the first film was announced, it’s time to put the earmuffs back on, because Summit Entertainment has optioned the other three books in the series (to date) and hired a writer to adapt New Moon and Eclipse, the next two.

The series is the story of Bella, an ordinary teen in love with a vampire, Edward, in a rainy northern US town. In New Moon, Edward tries to leave Bella for her own protection, causing her to take up extreme sports to feel closer to him, and form a friendship with a Native American boy who turns out to have his own supernatural secret. Eclipse sees the couple face an army of hostile vampires under the control of a former enemy, while still trying to chart their own course through the tricksy waters of undead love. The fourth book, Breaking Dawn, involves things too spoilerific to talk about, and has not yet got a writer attached.

Melissa Rosenberg is the screenwriter attached to the films – which is no surprise, since she also adapted Twilight. And, er, Step Up, because really dating a vampire is just another step in every teen’s struggle towards self-empowerment and Being Yourself. At least adapting these new books will mean that she finally gets to read them: Rosenberg makes it a point of principle not to read sequels before adapting early books so that she doesn’t get ahead of her characters.

There’s no word yet on whether the cast will return, but we’re guessing that the film company will be under considerable pressure (especially their eardrums, given the volume of screaming generally associated with this project) to get Pattinson et al back.

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