Summit seems determined to bring an air of respectability to the Twilight franchise by hiring an award winning, indie-film auteur for the last film in the series, The Twilight Saga: Breaking Dawn. Sofia Coppola, Bill Condon, and Gus Van Sant have already been rumored to be on Summit’s “want” list. Now the LA Times says Stephen Daldry is also on that list.

Daldry is the director of such mostly unwatched, but critically praised indie gems as Billie Elliot and The Reader. You remember The Reader, it’s Kate Winslet’s bathtub Nazi movie which everyone made jokes about no one seeing at the Oscars last year.

There’s no reason to think Daldry has the job, will get the job, or even take the job. At best the rumor here is that he’s being considered for the job. But toss this in a pot with all the other names being thrown around and a definite pattern emerges, one which points to some sort of brain-virus causing wild bouts of insanity at Summit Entertainment. Summit, what are you thinking?

With all due respect to Twilight fans, I’m pretty sure they have no interest in seeing Breaking Dawn by way of The Reader. I know the final Twilight book is supposed to be challenging and weird, the kind of material which might indeed lend itself to the work of an auteur. But if you spend a few minutes reading Twilight fan forums, you’ll see that even they don’t always agree on whether they like the final book. Mostly they’re interested in staring at Jacob’s abs or cooing over the will he, won’t she, romance. And I’m not talking about deep, abiding, Bridges of Madison County style romance here. They all seem pretty happy with cheap, tawdry, romance novel style romance. Who is Breaking Dawn being made for after all? It’s the last movie in the series, it seems kind of late to start trying to win over fans of arthouse cinema by stunt-hiring a Van Sant or a Daldry.