Nowa­days, “New Moon” is tear­ing apart box-office records like a Cullen feast­ing on a freshly killed deer. With the “Twi­light” sequel nab­bing the advance-sales record, the biggest single-day record and the highest-grossing mid­night show­ings of all time, fans have to won­der: Can this fran­chise get any big­ger? For­tu­nately, they only have to wait seven months to get the answer.

Many of the saga’s stars have cited “Eclipse” as their favorite of Stephe­nie Meyer’s nov­els, and with “30 Days of Night” film­maker David Slade at the helm, it seems likely to be a very dis­tinc­tive entry into the block­buster series. With that in mind (and since we’re always on top of the lat­est “Twi­light” news) we wanted to bring you our cheat sheet for “Eclipse” a lit­tle bit early to give you one-stop shop­ping for all the lat­est details on what could pos­si­bly be the biggest film of 2010.

Read more after the jump!

Let the Race Begin
Sum­mit Enter­tain­ment made head­lines in Feb­ru­ary when it announced the release date of “Eclipse” as June 30, less than a year after “New Moon.” At the time, the accel­er­ated pace seemed a bit risky, but fans were cau­tiously pleased that Edward, Bella and the rest wouldn’t be aging half-decades at a time between films. Tay­lor Laut­ner promised a “darker” film, Kris­ten Stew­art said the love tri­an­gle will be fur­ther inten­si­fied, Rob promised that Bella will be treach­er­ous in the flick, and the Cul­lens them­selves are look­ing for­ward to kick­ing some ass.

Flash­ing Back
One of the most eagerly antic­i­pated aspects of “Eclipse” is the mul­ti­ple flash­backs we’ll be see­ing of Dr. Carlisle Cullen recruit­ing his “fam­ily” as they were set to die decades ago in human form. Jack­son Rath­bone might have the meati­est back­story as Jasper, and he has filmed scenes where he’s rid­ing horses on the Civil War bat­tle­field, learn­ing lessons that will help the fam­ily in bat­tle against Vic­to­ria. Oscar nom­i­nee Catalina Sandino Moreno plays Maria, the vam­pire who bites Jasper. Mean­while, Jack Hus­ton has filmed his scenes as Royce King II, a.k.a. the Scum­bag Who Nearly Kills Ros­alie, and Nikki Reed can’t wait for fans to wit­ness her tragic back­story. An eager Slade recently cel­e­brated the film’s wrap by leak­ing the first offi­cial photo.

Murphy’s Law
For­mer Bauhaus singer and “God­fa­ther of Goth” Peter Mur­phy has filmed a key cameo for the third film, an appear­ance that delighted fan Billy Burke. When we spoke with Melissa Rosen­berg recently, she fur­ther explained that the cameo sets up the love/hate rela­tion­ship between the Cul­lens and the Quileute wolves.

Here Come the New­bies
Among the new stars onboard are Kirsten Prout as Lucy, Boo Boo Stew­art as Seth Clear­wa­ter, Xavier Samuel as Riley and so many oth­ers. At this rate, the cast of the saga might soon out­num­ber the audience.

Switch­ing Out Stars
Unfor­tu­nately, one of the sad things about “New Moon” is that fans spent the week­end watch­ing Rachelle Lefevre’s final scenes as Vic­to­ria, a char­ac­ter who dri­ves much of “Eclipse.” Sum­mit made big news when they announced that Bryce Dal­las Howard would be replac­ing Lefevre. The “stunned” fan favorite went pub­lic with her anger over being dis­missed. The stu­dio shot back by say­ing it was “dis­ap­pointed” in the actress, fans expressed out­rage and things became rel­a­tively quiet. Lefevre was notice­ably absent from the “New Moon” pre­miere last week, blam­ing it on a sick dog and claim­ing she was “too emo­tional” to attend. We can only hope the drama in “Eclipse” is half as com­pelling as what has hap­pened behind the scenes.

Source: MTV