New details about Eclipse from Nikki Finke's Deadline Hollywood: "I've confirmed there's no director hired yet. And the two productions won't be back-to-back. But that hasn't stopped Summit Entertainment from newly scheduling its Twilight threequel for release on June 30, 2010, not long after its Twilight sequel New Moon set for November 20th this year now being helmed by Chris Weitz. Summit also officially changed the name of its vampire movie franchise based on Stephenie Meyer's bestselling series of novels to The Twilight Saga. Here's how Summit descibes the plot of the threequel Eclipse:
"As Seattle is ravaged by a string of mysterious killings and a malicious vampire continues her quest for revenge, Bella once again finds herself surrounded by danger. In the midst of it all, she is forced to choose between her love for Edward and her friendship with Jacob — knowing that her decision has the potential to ignite the ageless struggle between vampire and werewolf. With her graduation quickly approaching, Bella has one more decision to make: life or death."
Regarding The Twilight Saga, my sources tell me that director Catherine Hardwick's claim in her diary that she didn't want to helm New Moon isn't accurate because Summit decided not to hire her for New Moon. And I've also learned that Summit only had a deal with Stephenie Meyer for the first book, Twilight. So the start-up film studio had to make individual deals for the other books in Meyer's series -- and the author got top-dollar, trust me. To date, Summit's low-cost blockbuster Twilight has earned $363 million in worldwide grosses -- almost evenly divided between domestic and international -- since its release on November 21st, 2008."
Also, EW.com exclusively reports the following:
Chris Weitz will not direct the third film in the Twilight series, Eclipse, a source close to the production tells EW.com exclusively. Because New Moon, which Weitz is helming, and Eclipse are due to be released so close together (on Nov. 20, 2009, and June 30, 2010, respectively), Weitz will be in post-production on New Moon at the same time that Eclipse will be shooting. That said, the source confirms a report that the movies will not be shot simultaneously or back-to-back; there will be a brief gap between the production of both films.
