Well, she was already commited to another project, so to split herself between two would've been impossible.
More can be read on
The Namesake at the following links:
Fox Searchlight - The Namesake The Namesake (2006) The Namesake - Rotten Tomatoes The Namesake & - Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia
It was an official selection at two film festivals.
The film was out on limited release in the US on March 9th.
It's amazing what a little research can unveil
eta:
Quote:
Originally Posted by
~*MischaBloom*~
The Namesake is done tho. She finished filming that movie a while back so I have no clue why she would turn HP down. They had asked her to direct GOF also; I remembered that and she turned them down.
As is HP 5. OotP wrapped production in November of last year, if I remember rightly. It began production in February 2006. So the two filming schedules would have inevitably clashed. And there's no way she could've been in New York and London at the same time

Producers, writers, even actors can work on more than one project at a time, but the director has to be there every day, even moreso with HP which has a lengthy pre-production and post-production period.