Looks Like Variety Jumped The Gun:Bayona not a done deal

We said this awhile back in regards to the Vanessa Hudgens and America Ferrara wild rumors, “Did all of Hollywood forget how to use the phone or this new fangled thing called email, and check things before publishing? ”

Because almost no one checked out any of the Rumors in those stories. The only outlets to pick up the phone and actually ASK credible sources with direct knowledge were us and Just Jared. Let that one sink in a minute. A newsblog run by fans and Just Jared, which not to disparage Just Jared, but they aren’t exactly The New York Times, and we sure don’t do this as our day job.  We both published from direct sources that we called: Hudgen’s manager in Just Jared’s case and Melissa Rosenberg in ours, totally debunking unsubstantiated rumor run by mainstream media (almost none of which retracted their erroneous stories).

Well the LA times has just quashed the latest director rumor that countless media outlets spun into fact. Here’s the quote that sums up what has become all too common in entertainment writing:

By sheer coincidence, I had lunch today with Erik Feig, who’s president of production at Summit and the man most involved with managing the hit series of films. (“New Moon,” the second film in the series, begins production later this month with Chris Weitz at the helm.)

Feig was shocked to see the media reports saying Summit had hired Bayona, since — ahem — they’re not true. “The ‘Eclipse’ directing job hasn’t been offered to Juan Antonio or anyone else,” he told me. “We’ve met with three or four talented filmmakers and we’ll be meeting with three or four more other candidates before we make any decision. No one has been offered the job.”

Feig added that no one even bothered to call to check out the rumors before printing them, something that has become an all-too-often occurrence in the Wild West free-for-all that constitutes today’s Web-based entertainment coverage. “Nikki never called Summit or any of the producers, and Variety ran it off her blog without calling us either, which I find doubly irresponsible.”

Read the whole story here. We’re wondering if the outlets who took the original story that was clearly published as rumor and reposted as fact will retract it.