Heavily advertised animated film Despicable Me reaped the benefits of its campaign with a respectable opening weekend. It earned just over $60 million dollars, limiting The Twilight Saga: Eclipse to only one week in the top spot. The latter earned $33 million in its second weekend, bringing it to $237 million, making it the 10th fastest movie to $200 million. Read the full story

I am currently watching Nathan’s Hot Dog Eating Contest, which has more story than this weekend’s top two grossers combined, but that’s beside the point. The estimates for Independence Day Weekend (which I remind you may change), have The Twilight Saga: Eclipse earning $69 million over the weekend, totaling $161 million in its first five days. It opened with $68 million on Wednesday, the highest opening Wednesday total of all time.

The Last Airbender placed in a distant second, earning M. Night Shyamalan an undeserved $40 million, with a $57 million total (the film was release on Thursday).

Toy Story 3 took another $30 million in its third week for third place on the weekend. It has now brought Pixar an impressive $289 million.

Farther down the list, Cyrus faired well with a slightly wider release, finishing tenth, with only 77 theaters. It earned $770,000 in its third weekend.

Check out the top 10 (movie- weekend; total)

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The latest Twilight film has hit theatres and I can do like every movie blog has done for the last three years running and make fun of the ridiculous vampire themes and werewolves or I can look at the real center piece of the film, the romance. With that I want to give everyone a look at my Top Ten Taboo Relationships in Film: Read the full story

Trying saying that title five times fast. So is the news coming from Twilight scribe Melissa Rosenberg, telling the LA Times how she plans to tackle the gore, blood and guts that have made Stephenie Meyer’s final book in her Twilight saga so controversial:

“On the fan site, on Facebook, all the comments are “It has to be R rated! You have to show the childbirth! Gore and guts and sex!” For me it’s actually more interesting to not see it. You know, you can do childbirth without seeing childbirth … it doesn’t mean it’s any less evocative of an experience.”

One could imagine the “virginity scene” being done tastefully on screen and everything remaining PG-13, but I guess the bloody, baby-ripping-itself-out-of-Bella birth scene probably couldn’t make the cut.

Bill Condon, the director of the final, two-part installment, is a pro at uncomfortable sex. If it’s allowed in Breaking Dawn, in any capacity, Condon will be sure to make tweenage skin crawl with equal measures of excitement and fear of that thing they’ve yet to try, but oh-so-desperately want to. [Cinematical]

Do you read the Twilight books? Really? Do you?

It was reported a while ago that the French horror film, Martyrs would be getting a US remake. Now, thanks the The Playlist we get news that the producer of the remake, Wyck Godfrey (Twilight, Dear John) is hoping Kristen Stewart (Twilight, The Runaways) will star in the film.

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Fanpires rejoice, Summit Entertainment has confirmed via press release that Breaking Dawn, the final book in Stephenie Meyer’s Twilight saga, will be adapted into two separate films. Having successfully negotiated their contracts the main cast will return with Bill Condon (Dreamgirls, Gods and Monsters) to direct both films. Read the full story

Last night the MTV Movie Awards aired live. The two hour ceremony really didn’t offer any surprises as Twilight: New Moon swept the awards show. Despite the predictability of almost every award, the MTV Movie Awards are always fun to watch as they are less uptight and less serious than the Oscars. The stars always seem to have more fun. Perhaps the highlight of the show was the censors who allowed quite a few curse words to make it to our television sets at home. As always the show was highlighted by a number of music performances as well as some other surprises. I won’t spoil everything the show had to offer but for a list of winners click the jump.

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Summit Entertainment has announced that the official release date for Breaking Dawn, the final chapter in Stephenie Meyer’s Twilight Saga, will be November 18, 2011. While this will be the longest wait between Twilight films, with Eclipse due out on June 30 this year, the biggest question is whether Summit will capitalize on the franchise’s success and turn Breaking Dawn into two films.

The smartest financial decision would be to produce two films, just as Warner Brothers is doing with Harry Potter and the Deathly Hallows. Deadline has already stated that Breaking Dawn will definitely be split, and filmed back-to-back. Bill Condon will likely direct both parts, having already been confirmed as the director of Breaking Dawn. Summit has still not made any official comment regarding this rumor that has been circulating among fans and film sites for some time.

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When Summit breaks dawn, they know to bring a Condon with them. The Dreamgirls director is set to wrap up the Twilight Saga with Breaking Dawn. He was rumored a few weeks ago but now it has been confirmed.  This will push a few of his projects to the back burner including the untitled Richard Pryor biopic starring Marlon Wayans and Salmon Fishing in the Yemen, written by Slumdog Millionaire scribe Simon Beaufoy. Check out the press release below via Deadline.

Los Angeles, CA April 28, 2010 – Summit Entertainment has confirmed that Academy Award® winner Bill Condon will direct THE TWILIGHT SAGA: BREAKING DAWN, based on the fourth novel in author Stephenie Meyer’s Twilight series. THE TWILIGHT SAGA: BREAKING DAWN, is currently being written by Melissa Rosenberg, and will star Kristen Stewart, Robert Pattinson and Taylor Lautner. Wyck Godfrey, Karen Rosenfelt, and Stephenie Meyer will produce the project.

“Bringing Stephenie Meyer’s BREAKING DAWN to the screen requires a graceful and intelligent hand and we believe Bill Condon is exactly the right steward, having shown equal and abundant talents of immense creativity and subtle sensitivity,” said Erik Feig, President of Production and Acquisitions, for Summit Entertainment.

Added author Stephenie Meyer, “I’m so thrilled that Bill wants to work with us. I think he’s going to be a great fit, and I’m excited to see what he does with the material.”

“I’m very excited to get the chance to bring the climax of this saga to life on-screen. As fans of the series know, this is a one-of-a-kind book – and we’re hoping to create an equally unique cinematic experience,” said Bill Condon.

Condon is well known for writing and directing DREAMGIRLS, KINSEY, and GODS AND MONSTERS, for which he won the Academy Award for Best Adapted Screenplay in 1999. He was nominated for a second Oscar for his screenplay for the movie musical CHICAGO in 2003. Most recently the multi-hyphenate directed the pilot episode for the Showtime series “The Big C” and produced the 81st Annual Academy Awards telecast, hosted by Hugh Jackman.

The third film in the franchise, THE TWILIGHT SAGA: ECLIPSE is due in theaters on June 30, 2010.

Condon is represented by WME and Anonymous Content.

OMG! check this out:

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