Back in 2006, it was rumored that Cuaron would direct, and del Toro would produce. Well, time has passed, and the roles have changed. Cuaron tells Empire that he will stay behind the scenes, while the increasingly busy del Toro directs the film. The project came about as the two were discussing adapting another Dahl story, “Uncle Oswald,” when talk turned to “The Witches.” Inspired, Cuaron says, “Guillermo wrote this amazing screenplay really quickly.”

Cuaron also says it won’t be anything like the 1990 film, because del Toro will “do it completely in stop-motion animation.” Will stop-motion witches be less terrifying than Angelica Huston in a bald cap — or even freakier because they’re not real?

It’s unclear when we’ll see this film, as del Toro still has to direct “The Hobbit” and has a dozen projects besides this in the works. (He apparently never sleeps.) But it’s nice to know that Dahl’s story is waiting on the horizon to keep another generation or two of kids awake at night, isn’t it?

MTV readers, what do you think of del Toro directing “The Witches” in stop motion? A match made in heaven? Is it a story begging to be redone in live action? Should it be left alone altogether?

“My last movie [‘The Nativity Story’], we shot in Italy. We were just in Italy again three weeks ago for the film festival,” she explained. “I’ve gone to every art museum and a lot of little villages and plazas that are very similar to [what’s described in ‘New Moon’] up in Tuscany and that area. It’s gonna be gorgeous.”

Hardwicke also gave her laundry list of obstacles to be overcome in making “New Moon” a similar big-screen splash: the wolf transformations, re-making the Volturi and figuring out a way to give Robert Pattinson more screen time. She also revealed an eagerness to crack the difficult nut of portraying Bella’s mental connection to Edward, and the additional powers of the Cullen clan.

“[Bella hearing Edward’s voice] would be one of the challenges for sure. Like, how much do you see it? Does it look like an aberration? Does it look like it’s in her mind? That’s one of the things you would have to test. You could probably try two to three different ways, and see what makes sense,” she explained. “Then there’s [Alice’s] visions. You have to take that idea of how Edward appears to [Bella], and make sure that’s distinct from Alice’s visions, so that you understand the powers that each of them has. I think there’s a lot of good challenges in ‘New Moon.’ ”

And finally, we got Catherine’s thoughts on some fans’ (extremely hopeful) desire to see Johnny Depp as a Volturi. “Oh wow, well who wouldn’t love to have him as anything?” she grinned, telling us that Stephenie Meyer already has a few (far less famous) names in mind. “He’s pretty busy, but you never know! That’s a fun idea; that would be cool.”

Alright, Twilighters, now is the time to make your voices heard: You’ve heard Catherine’s “New Moon” ideas. Would you like to see her continue to direct the series?

So with that in mind, click here for our “Most Thankful For” round-up, which includes new interviews with Robert Downey Jr., Harrison Ford, Sarah Jessica Parker, Josh Brolin, Russell Brand and “Cloverfield” helmer Matt Reeves.

The MTV Movies Blog crew will be back Monday, December 1, so until then, have a wonderful Thanksgiving!

Another such star is 29-year-old Edi Gathegi, a veteran supporting player on TV (“House”) and in movies (“Gone Baby Gone”), who is just now coming into his own as the nomadic “Twilight” vampire Laurent. Naturally, after the box-office results came pouring in, MTV was eager to catch up with the affable actor to get his reaction.

“I feel amazing,” Gathegi gushed. “It’s wonderful to be part of a hugely successful opening.”

As for his whereabouts during the “Twilight” opening weekend, he remembered: “I was in Cambridge, meeting fans all weekend, and trying to not think about how the film was performing, but every few minutes I would get text messages from friends and family telling me how it was doing. The estimates kept going up. It was surreal!”

As Twilighters know, the story of Laurent will continue in the next film, and Gathegi has already joked about his eagerness to “kick some werewolf butt – and then die.” So needless to say, he was excited by the news that cameras will begin rolling on “New Moon” in the spring.

“I am more than excited to hear about ‘New Moon’ getting the green light,” Edi told us. “It’s going to be cold up in Oregon again, but that’s what I live for. The work that is, not the cold. It’s been a hell of a ride, and I’m ecstatic to be able to re-live it all over again.”

Hey Twilighters: Which “New Moon” elements do you feel need to be tweaked? Which should, above all else, remain the same?

“I want to meet an Edward!” the 23-year-old excitedly revealed to MTV News on the set of her new movie “Sorority Row,” where she shocked us by professing her love for “Twilight.”

“I’m obsessed. I love it. And I think the fourth book was the best,” she said, taking a stand against all the haters who decried “Breaking Dawn.” “I’m still on the bandwagon. I love that book.”

In fact, Audrina is so up on the series that she’s already campaigning to be a part of it, telling us she’d love to be thought of as a potential cast member for the next two adaptations.

“I would definitely love to play one of the vampires. I don’t know which one because there’s so many in the forth book that come in,” she enthused. “I’d have to go in and read all the vampires again and see which one I’d absolutely want to play, but I would love to [be a part of it]!”

She’s Team Edward all the way, but does Audrina Patridge have the right stuff to be in the “Twilight” movie? What do you think Twilighters? Is there a role you think she could play well? Would you want to see her alongside your beloved Edward and Bella? Sound off on your thoughts below!

So awesome, apparently, that Jackson is ready to take the plunge with Goodman on the rising director’s follow-up, “The Fallen,” a story which centers around a group of Boston firemen. Now all the talented duo (who admit to golfing together a few times a week) need is a greenlight.

“Yeah, we’ll see what happens with that,” Goodman said of the finished script, which he is currently deciding what to do with. “We are looking at that and we both would like to work together and we’ll see what happens.”

“The script is good and Brian’s a good guy,” Jackson added. “Hopefully, that film will come together and I’ll be able to do it.”

If made (Goodman reportedly has a slew of projects he’s considering or working on in the moment) the film will be a return to South Boston for the Massachusetts native. The movie follows a fireman who gets hooked on painkillers after suffering injuries saving a woman from a fire.

Forget all that, though. Jackson’s just hoping to get some of Goodman’s good review mojo.

“What? Sometimes people get those kind of reviews!” the actor laughed of his earlier claim that Brian got very, umm, excited praise. “I don’t get them that often.”

Have you seen “What Doesn’t Kill You” yet? If not, what are you waiting for? Would Sam Jackson work as a Boston fire chief? Sound off on your thoughts below.

“I’m actually just finishing work on an animated film called ‘9,’” Wood told us when we caught up with him at Alicia Keys’ Black Ball. “It’s based on a short film Shane Acker did a number of years ago. It’s a beautiful short.”

Tim Burton is producing the full-length feature from Acker, one of the WETA Digital animators on “Return of the King,” and Crispin Glover, Jennifer Connelly, John C. Reilly, Martin Landau, and Christopher Plummer are among the other voice actors. Wood plays 9, one of nine mechanized rag dolls, “who kind of have the soul of humanity in them,” he said. “It’s basically about a post-apocalyptic world where machines created by man have destroyed mankind, and these nine ragdolls go about trying to find out what has happened and what these machines are about.”

In the worldless short film version, two of the ragdolls — 9 and 5 — are scavenging for items when they encounter and must fight one of the ramshackle machine monsters, whose head is a skull, limbs are metal, and torso made out of the burlap hide of ragdolls it’s already killed.

The feature-length version will have more characters, as developed by “Corpse Bride” writer Pamela Pettler, and more beasts, to enrich the world that 9 took place in, so that you can see how this world came to be, how the ragdolls fit in, what the beasts are that hunt them, and what happened to the humans. “It’s so uplifting!” Wood laughed.

The ten-and-a-half short took four years to make, but the feature length will be out by next year, Wood said. And the experience of doing another animated character has left him hungry for more.

“It’s a totally different kind of experience,” he said. “You don’t really rely on the physical. It’s loose. And it’s fun to just create a voice and work on a character that way. It’s a different kind of creative process. It’s fun.”

Sound like something that’ll get you into a theater seat? Chime in below.

“If we don’t get it right it’s really, really going to suck,” said Downey. “It has to be the crowning blow of Marvel’s best and brightest because it’s the hardest thing to get right. It’s tough to spin all the plates for one of these characters.”

Read more about Robert Downey Jr.’s thoughts on the “avengers” movie on SplashPage.MTV.com.

“If every single person who bought a ticket to ‘Brokeback Mountain’ bought a ticket to ‘Milk,’ we’d be very happy producers,” laughed producer Bruce Cohen when we caught up with him at the Out 100 New York gala, where the director, writer, producers, and cast of the film were being honored for filming the tale of the man who was California’s first openly gay elected official (only to be later assassinated).

“Gus Van Sant goes back and forth between things like ‘To Die For’ and ‘Good Will Hunting’ to his more experimental fare, and this is a combination,” Cohen said. “It’s not mainstream subject matter, it’s way out there on the edge, but we’re hoping it appeals to a larger audience.”

Cohen thinks that since “Brokeback Mountain” broke down the wall between gay and straight audiences, “Milk” has a stronger chance, especially given its Oscar buzz for Sean Penn’s performance. “Sean really became Harvey Milk,” he said. “He got so into the history and the research. A lot of people who knew Harvey got wide-eyed looks in their eyes when they saw Sean’s performance. They thought Harvey was back among us.”

Plus the political timing couldn’t be better, Cohen said. “We’re hoping that with the presidential election and all the gay initiatives around the country, especially Prop. 8 in California, that people will be interested in a political movie right now,” Cohen said. “It’s not a documentary, but a lot of real-life people were advisors on the film, and we tried to be as accurate as possible.”

Gay politics aren’t usually subjects that studios lightly green-light, Cohen said, but “Milk” was relatively easy to push through the Hollywood system (unlike, say, his other project, a Jennifer Garner resurrection drama called “Be With You” that he said probably won’t ever get made). But with “Milk,” he said, “it was a sigh of relief. Gus loved the script, and Sean Penn was our first choice, so as soon as Sean was on board, we started filming. ‘Milk’ didn’t have to get sour on the development shelf. It was just the right time for this story to get told.”

Do you think more films with gay subject matter can grab a straight audience? Let us know your thoughts below.

As fans can attest, Hollywood’s take on the second novel will be a decidedly larger affair than “Twilight,” with the addition of werewolves and journeys to Alaska and Italy. Pattinson himself told MTV News that “New Moon” ranks as his favorite of the four-book series. Check out his thoughts on the sequel towards the end of the video below, and then click here to read what the entire cast is looking forward to from “New Moon.”