Catherine Hardwicke hit one out of the park for female directors this past weekend, but she had a lot of help. Not only was she working with a pre-sold property, she also had a very manageable budget of $37 million. Quite different from the $2 million she had to work with on Thirteen a few years back. Of course, she had similar budgets on Lords of Dogtown ($25 million) and The Nativity Story ($35 million), and both were box office disappointments. Still, she’s going to keep on being trusted with more money — if Summit is smart they’ll keep her on for at least the first Twilight sequel, which will surely come with a higher price tag — and as long as she continues with genre films, she’s sure to remain a profitable director.

Not every talented filmmaker does well with more money. Danny Boyle, for instance, typically bombs with bigger budgets. And a lot of foreign auteurs strike out when handed costly studio-produced genre or franchise pics (Jeunet’s Alien Resurrection is a favorite example). But there’s the occasional filmmaker who, like Steven Soderbergh or Christopher Nolan, can make something worthwhile out of any budget they’re allotted. And then there are the many indie filmmakers who quickly find themselves at home with modestly priced broad comedies, such as the case with Seth Gordon easily transitioning from the Slamdance doc The King of Kong to the star-studded Hollywood holiday pic Four Christmases, out this week.

Who will be the next small-scale filmmaker to successfully rise up and prove him or herself worthy of bigger budgets? SpoutBlog has selected five directors we’d like to see given an economic boost, each because he or she would likely deliver something more interesting and popular than the usual Hollywood product.

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• I was gonna do a whole post on this, but I’m totally late for a screening, so I’ll let Stu do the honors: “Only a couple months after the sturm und drang accompanying news that Gregg Araki’s cult fave Smiley Face was doomed to a quick Los Angeles release and subsequent video dumping by distributor First Look, word arrives at Reeler HQ that the Anna Faris stoner farce will indeed get a two-week New York run starting Dec. 26 at IFC Center.”
• “If a movie could ‘adopt’ a movie, then Fight Club would use Frownland as a recruitment film, after which I would have signed up instantly.” Chale Nafus is happily infuriated by an Austin screening of Ronnie Bronstein’s feature. Via Agnes Varnum.
• Mike Patton of Faith No More made monster noises for I Am Legend.
• Diablo Cody is getting a divorce. She broke this news via encrypted tattoo. Luckily, an awards blog broke the code!
• Adriana Falcão of Brazil has won that YouTube/Fox Searchlight/Juno short film contest thingy. I didn’t get to her short; I attempted to watch three others and, uh, stopped.

Here’s a look at the notable films opening this week that we’ve previously covered here on SpoutBlog:

• Redacted: Bill O’Reilly can finally get a look at the film he’s sight-unseen been threatening to boycott, while Magnolia finally gets to put that whole all-press-is-good-press maxim to the test. Here’s my review from Telluride; for a recap on the possibly-contrived battle between director Brian DePalma and producer/distributor Mark Cuban, see here, here and here.
• Beowulf: Is director Robert Zemeckis not doing press for this film because he knows it’s a bad idea to compete with the post-Comic-Con gushage over Angelina Jolie’s nakedness?
• Smiley Face: Kevin and Paul are big fans of Gregg Araki’s stoner comedy, which came off a successful festival run to be all but abandoned by its distributor. The film opens on one screen in L.A. today before going straight to DVD. Listen to Paul’s interview with Araki here.
• Margot at the Wedding: Noah Baumbach’s follow-up to The Squid and the Whale is disappointing, despite Nicole Kidman’s strong performance as a wicked sister. Read the review here.
• Southland Tales: What can I say? I thought it was funny.

Back in April, Kevin and Paul devoted half an episode of FilmCouch to Gregg Araki’s Smiley Face, a winning stoner comedy starring Anna Faris that earned lukewarm critical reviews, but was a hit with audiences at SXSW and Sundance. “I giggle just thinking about,” Paul said at the time. “[It's] the funniest stoner flick I have ever seen.”
Smiley’s distributor, First Look, had initially planned a platform release beginning on April 20 (get it? 420? Get it?), but that date came and went and Araki’s film still hadn’t made it to North American theaters. After the film played at Toronto a couple of weeks ago, it looked as though First Look might be gearing up for a new release date. But yesterday, MTV’s Larry Carroll confirmed that Smiley Face will open on just one screen in Los Angeles, before First Look dumps it on DVD.

This news has already sparked a mild eruption of outrage across the web. …Read more

Paul interviews Gregg Araki (Mysterious Skin) after the screening of Smiley Face at SXSW 2007. Hands down, one of the funniest movies of the year. Richard Linklater makes a surprise appearance.