After Rachelle Lefevre, the actress who was originally cast to portray vampire Victoria in Twilight, The Twilight Saga: New Moon and The Twilight Saga: Eclipse but was surprisingly fired from the role and replaced by actress Bryce Dallas Howard this week, publicly voiced her feelings on being axed from the Twilight movie franchise and after Summit Entertainment, the movie studio runnin’ things for the Twilight Saga movie franchise, followed up with their say on the matter … don’t expect to be hearing any further official statements from either camp. According to Marc Malkin at E! News, the battle was been passed over to the lawyers and out of the public spotlight. At this point, Lefevre will pretty much not get the part back … that ain’t happenin’ … but she still wants to get paid because she feels she was unfairly fired and is due her hefty paycheck. Obvs, Summit disagrees … and that is where the feud is at at this point:

Rachelle Lefevre and Summit Entertainment’s fangs are retracting a little bit today—at least in public, that is. I’m told the actress formerly known as Twilight’s Victoria isn’t planning on releasing any more statements … Same for Summit—the corporate lips are sealed. Why? Because now the bloody mess is apparently being hashed out by lawyers. What’s on the table? In short, Lefevre wants her money. Summit is arguing she’s due nothing because the studio insists she’s in breach of contract for signing on for the indie flick Barney’s Version. “Rachelle’s contract says she’s allowed to do smaller projects like Barney’s Version,” one source said. Meanwhile, her Twilight and New Moon costars are “devastated,” said another source. “As nice and lovely as Bryce [Dallas Howard] is, they feel like a family member has been taken from them.” But don’t expect them to go public with too much anti-Summit talk. As my gossiping cohorts over at The Awful Truth point out, Lefevre’s dismissal sends a very strong message—or warning—not to mess with the studio. Sources also tell me that shortly after Summit announced Lefevre’s dismissal, the rest of the cast was told not to elaborate on the circumstances to the media, beyond repeating that it was due to a scheduling conflict. “But that was before the Rachelle and Summit statements yesterday,” a Twilight insider said. “Who knows what they’ll ask them to say now.”

While it must’ve felt really good for both parties to bitch out the other in public, the best thing would’ve been if the matter had been handed off to the lawyers from the start. In the public she said/they said battle, Lefevre comes out lookin’ better … she looks like the poor actress who was mistreated by the big bad corporation. Summit‘s decision to publicly attack her only made them look worse. If Lefevre‘s contract really does allow her to work on other films in addition to the Twilight films (which would make sense because Kristen Stewart, Robert Pattinson and Taylor Lautner have that stipulation in their contracts) then Summit is prolly going to pay up. My guess is we’ll never hear about it officially. Once monies are paid out, there’s usually a part of the deal that bars either side from talking specifics. I’m totally on Team Rachelle. IMHO, she got the shaft. I hope she’ll get her money even if she will never get the part back.

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