Catherine Hardwicke

There used to be formalized rites of passage to bridge the gap between childhood and adulthood; now some kids just fall into the chasm and barely get out. Blame it on the lack of parental guidance, blame it on the modern temptations of sex, drugs and consumer products, but it's a particularly perilous moment for an adolescent girl.

The decision by Gary Ross and Lionsgate to part ways on "Catching Fire" has fans worrying how the new "Hunger Games" film will fare without the original director. But this is just the latest example in a long tradition of studios switching horses on a sequel. How have previous franchises turned out? Here are six comparisons. "Twilight" is perhaps the most famous of all recent cases, and the one to which "Catching Fire" is now most often being compared. In late 2008, after studio Summit and "Twilight" director Catherine Hardwicke haggled over issues large and small, Summit hit the reset button and hired Chris Weitz to handle the second film.

Before there were X Games, before there were skate parks on every corner, miniature Tony Hawk figures in every Happy Meal, there was the myth of the Dogbowl -- an expanse of curved and flowing concrete that drew skateboarders like a mythical Siren. It was small, tight and dangerous -- an empty, kidney-shaped swimming pool at the back of a Santa Monica mansion.

Sequestered inside a Hollywood studio in late September, director Bill Condon, putting the finishing touches on the latest film in the blockbuster "Twilight" franchise "Breaking Dawn — Part 1," asked a technician to reduce the heavy beats thundering across the soundtrack. On a screen, terror dawns on the face of a Brazilian housekeeper as she realizes that the young woman standing in front of her, newly married 19-year-old Bella Swan (Kristen Stewart), is carrying the child of her vampire husband Edward Cullen (Robert Pattinson)

The horror-tinged romance of "Red Riding Hood" is at its heart nothing more than a fashionable fairytale version of what's all the rage in teen love stories these days. The basic formula includes a moody beauty falling for the wrong boy, who may actually be a vampire-alien-werewolf-whatever. Can "Pinocchio at 15" be far behind? With "my, what big eyes you have" Amanda Seyfried as the girl in the scarlet cloak and that edgy shaman of young angst, Catherine Hardwicke, in the director's chair, the movie comes with great expectations.

The rowdy and sometimes painfully raw "Lords of Dogtown" is a perfect marriage between film and skateboarder, and the way in which the camera tracks every incredible move of the movie's virtuosos gives it a dynamic, exhilarating energy.

You may remember that the last time we wrote about Catherine Hardwicke back in December, it was to lament the news that the gifted filmmaker, after delivering a lucrative franchise starter to Summit Entertainment in the form of "Twilight," was being pushed aside, with Summit moving ahead on a sequel to the hit film without her. It's fair to say that Hardwicke had her own doubts about continuing with the series. Nonetheless, the fallout from the news -- with fans voicing complaints about the franchise losing its top creative voice, not to mention its top female voice outside of author Stephenie Meyer -- made it look like a very unhappy parting of the ways.

The decision by Gary Ross and Lionsgate to part ways on "Catching Fire" has fans worrying how the new "Hunger Games" film will fare without the original director. But this is just the latest example in a long tradition of studios switching horses on a sequel. How have previous franchises turned out? Here are six comparisons. "Twilight" is perhaps the most famous of all recent cases, and the one to which "Catching Fire" is now most often being compared. In late 2008, after studio Summit and "Twilight" director Catherine Hardwicke haggled over issues large and small, Summit hit the reset button and hired Chris Weitz to handle the second film.

Catherine Hardwicke knew exactly what she was getting herself into when she signed on to direct the big-screen adaptation of "Twilight," the first installment in author Stephenie Meyer's bestselling young adult franchise about everygirl Bella Swan and her vampire beau Edward Cullen. The filmmaker had turned up to see the author on an L.A.-area stop on her 2007 book tour and witnessed firsthand the near hysteria the books inspire among legions of largely young, largely female readers.

Sequestered inside a Hollywood studio in late September, director Bill Condon, putting the finishing touches on the latest film in the blockbuster "Twilight" franchise "Breaking Dawn — Part 1," asked a technician to reduce the heavy beats thundering across the soundtrack. On a screen, terror dawns on the face of a Brazilian housekeeper as she realizes that the young woman standing in front of her, newly married 19-year-old Bella Swan (Kristen Stewart), is carrying the child of her vampire husband Edward Cullen (Robert Pattinson)

The horror-tinged romance of "Red Riding Hood" is at its heart nothing more than a fashionable fairytale version of what's all the rage in teen love stories these days. The basic formula includes a moody beauty falling for the wrong boy, who may actually be a vampire-alien-werewolf-whatever. Can "Pinocchio at 15" be far behind? With "my, what big eyes you have" Amanda Seyfried as the girl in the scarlet cloak and that edgy shaman of young angst, Catherine Hardwicke, in the director's chair, the movie comes with great expectations.

The ads for "Red Riding Hood" show Amanda Seyfried dramatically cloaked in a cape, the better to see her in the snowy woods that serve as the backdrop for a story loosely based on the classic fairy tale. But, as the trailers hint, everything is not as it seems. The movie is also a print novel that was being written even as the filming progressed. It is also a multimedia e-book that leverages the latest technology to enhance the story of a teenage girl torn between two male suitors, one of whom may be a werewolf.

You may remember that the last time we wrote about Catherine Hardwicke back in December, it was to lament the news that the gifted filmmaker, after delivering a lucrative franchise starter to Summit Entertainment in the form of "Twilight," was being pushed aside, with Summit moving ahead on a sequel to the hit film without her. It's fair to say that Hardwicke had her own doubts about continuing with the series. Nonetheless, the fallout from the news -- with fans voicing complaints about the franchise losing its top creative voice, not to mention its top female voice outside of author Stephenie Meyer -- made it look like a very unhappy parting of the ways.

Catherine Hardwicke knew exactly what she was getting herself into when she signed on to direct the big-screen adaptation of "Twilight," the first installment in author Stephenie Meyer's bestselling young adult franchise about everygirl Bella Swan and her vampire beau Edward Cullen. The filmmaker had turned up to see the author on an L.A.-area stop on her 2007 book tour and witnessed firsthand the near hysteria the books inspire among legions of largely young, largely female readers.

Thirty miles outside town, in a wet, stunningly bleak meadow ringed by moss-draped Oregon ash, vampires are playing baseball. They're decked out in a hodgepodge of vintage jerseys, caps and striped socks, presumably collected over their last century of eternal life. They make such a racket with their supernatural abilities that they have to take the field under cover of a thunderstorm.

The rowdy and sometimes painfully raw "Lords of Dogtown" is a perfect marriage between film and skateboarder, and the way in which the camera tracks every incredible move of the movie's virtuosos gives it a dynamic, exhilarating energy.

Thirty miles outside town, in a wet, stunningly bleak meadow ringed by moss-draped Oregon ash, vampires are playing baseball. They're decked out in a hodgepodge of vintage jerseys, caps and striped socks, presumably collected over their last century of eternal life. They make such a racket with their supernatural abilities that they have to take the field under cover of a thunderstorm.

First Person: Despite my prison term, it was my colleagues in Hollywood - yes, Hollywood - who gave me encouragement. In the summer of 2009 I was dragged into a federal courtroom in handcuffs and leg irons. I'd been looking for a sense of family my entire life, a journey that had led me to a street gang for a decade and a half. So the arraignment on extortion charges wasn't a surprise, but the timing was. I'd left the gang three years earlier and had just found out my film"ENMV0002398"> , "Little Birds,"was fully financed and we were set to begin shooting.

Before there were X Games, before there were skate parks on every corner, miniature Tony Hawk figures in every Happy Meal, there was the myth of the Dogbowl -- an expanse of curved and flowing concrete that drew skateboarders like a mythical Siren. It was small, tight and dangerous -- an empty, kidney-shaped swimming pool at the back of a Santa Monica mansion.

There used to be formalized rites of passage to bridge the gap between childhood and adulthood; now some kids just fall into the chasm and barely get out. Blame it on the lack of parental guidance, blame it on the modern temptations of sex, drugs and consumer products, but it's a particularly perilous moment for an adolescent girl.