The beautiful love story between a young girl and a breathtakingly handsome vampire, “Twilight,” is now just running in theaters (or about to do so in some parts of the world) but producers are already speaking of a “franchise.” And they do so with good reason because the public reaction has been amazing, much so that it has enabled producers to start thinking of a sequel already.

Called “New Moon,” the sequel to the teen hit has been tentatively scheduled for release sometime in November 2009, though, right now, it’s a bit hard to say whether this deadline will be met. However, Hollywood Insider is reporting that Summit Entertainment is pretty confident that it can pull off any feat it might set with this second film. The only thing that must be taken care of right now is finding a director.

Catherine Hardwicke, who directed “Twilight,” bowed out of the sequel, which means that the studio must find a replacement for her, and fast. Initial reports had it that Hardwicke was actually fired for being too difficult on set but, now, the aforementioned source is reporting that it was she who gracefully refused because of the grueling schedule, which she felt she could not deal with one more time and still do great work.

“She’d love to do the sequel if she could do it better than ‘Twilight.’ It became clear that Summit didn’t have those same priorities.” one source told the Insider in relation to Hardwicke’s refusal. And, indeed, as the Insider also points out, during the first week of release of “Twilight,” Summit was already talking sequels.

“There is that first... script. All the finesse that turns a screenplay into a movie hasn’t happened yet.” Summit Production President Erik Feig told EW magazine at the time. Less than two weeks later, he was telling the media how he and the studio were quite enthusiastic about writer Melissa Rosenberg’s progress on the sequel.

Assuming the director part is solved by the studio, “any director who signs on to replace Catherine Hardwicke has to be in Vancouver by Dec. 15 to begin 12 weeks of preproduction before a mid-March start date,” the Insider points out. A hectic schedule, indeed, but one that will likely return the most pleasing results.