Chris Weitz Backpedals, Says He's Not Through With Movies

Funny how a 'New Moon' rising can bring out a transformation in all of us. Just days after 'The Twilight Saga: New Moon' director Chris Weitz admitted during an interview with MovieMaker Magazine that "I have maybe one more film in me," it now appears that he's had a change of heart.

Far from folding up his director's chair, a new interview with New York Magazine reveals that Weitz is blaming all those pesky retirement rumors on -- what else? -- online gossip.

"That's become Internet Chinese whispers," Weitz insists in his chat with NY Mag. "I said something like, 'Oh I'm so tired of doing all these movies,' but that became, 'I'm not doing any more movies now.' There's always a time I say never again, but it's more like a bad hangover."

A "bad hangover" sounds like a far cry from Weitz's earlier statement to MovieMaker in which he adamantly declared, "I don't think that people have to do the same thing for all their lives ... I'm always looking for my last film, where I can put the brush down, and this ['The Gardener,' Weitz's Twilight follow-up] is the one."

'The Gardener' is purportedly Weitz's homage to the Italian Vittorio De Sica classic, 'The Bicycle Thief,' which the director intends to shoot half in English and half in Spanish. But the real reason for Weitz's disillusionment with his chosen career path stems from his experience shooting the big budget flop, 'The Golden Compass.'

"I wanted that to be my masterpiece," he told MovieMaker. "Unfortunately, the edit was taken from me and whatever chance I had at that was also taken from me, which is kind of sad." The negative experience with New Line was thought to have dissuaded Weitz from stepping behind the camera again.

But now the filmmaker is humming a different tune, telling New York Mag that 'New Moon' will serve as "redemption for me, because I was able to accurately depict the book on film." Although early critical reaction to the second installment of the 'Twilight Saga' seems resoundingly negative ("You know you're in trouble with a sequel when the word of mouth advises you to see the first movie twice instead," cautions Roger Ebert), it's likely that 'New Moon' will at least succeed where 'The Golden Compass' failed and fully dominate the box office, if ticket presales and midnight screenings are any indication -- a triumph that is certain to put the indecisive director back in favor with studio heads all over Hollywood. Time will tell if Weitz will grow tired of directing, but for the foreseeable future, at least, 'Twilight' certainly isn't going anywhere.