Catherine Hardwicke to direct The Bitch Posse

There was a time where I thought Catherine Hardwicke was one of the best new directors working, and certainly one that made movies that appealed to me. Thirteen was a tough, hard-hitting teen drama that shocked a lot of folks. Lords of Dogtown, while flawed in a lot of ways, captured the energy of the skateboarding scene pretty well and had a number of great performances. Then Hardwicke fell off with her tepid take on The Nativity Story, and then completely threw herself into the teeny bopper muck with Twilight and the dismal Red Riding Hood. When the worst movies of the year lists start popping up, expect Red Riding Hood to be featured prominently.  Hopefully Hardwicke is moving back into the realm that made her so highly regarded to begin with, as Deadline reports she'll be directing The Bitch Posse, based on Martha O'Connor's 2006 novel.

It sounds like something that should be right up Hardwicke's alley. The story "follows focuses on three friends, Cherry, Amy and Rennie, high school seniors who come from troubled homes and form a dangerous alliance called the Bitch Posse. Something occurs that rips apart the friendship and haunts them into adulthood. The book switches back and forth from those high school years to their adult lives where one is in a mental institution, the other is a promiscuous writer and the third suffers through a loveless marriage."

So it could explore some of the material she covered in Thirteen, but also has enough teen angst to appease her Twilight fans. No vampires, though. The script is being adapted by actress and playwright, Tristine Skyler. Skyler has appeared in such films as Book of Shadows: Blair Witch 2 and Kidco. Yep, that Kidco, from back in 1984. You know you remember it and loved it.  She's currently working with Julia Stiles on an adaptation of Sylvia Plath's The Bell Jar.

Hardwicke was recently in talks to jump right back into the young adult pool as director of The Maze Runner, but little has been heard about that since.