“Despicable Me” had a sensational debut at the box office, taking in a studio-estimated $60.1 million and easily surpassing the second weekend of “The Twilight Saga: Eclipse,” which dropped 49% to $33.4 million and is playing virtually even with the last “Twilight” movie, “New Moon.”

“Predators,” the other newbie at the box office this weekend, opened to $25.3 million, a strong start given its modest budget.

But “Despicable Me” was the big box-office news, as the 3-D movie far outpaced expectations based on pre-release surveys and marked a fantastic start for Universal Pictures in the competitive animated family film business. It was the biggest-ever opening for an original animated movie not made by Pixar or DreamWorks Animation, putting Universal’s Illumination Entertainment family films unit among the top players in its space.

It was also a notable opening, given that “Toy Story 3″ is still doing solid business. That film and “The Last Airbender” took up a number of the nation’s 3-D screens, leaving “Despicable Me” with only 1,551 theaters that played the movie in 3-D, about 800 fewer than other recent 3-D movies have enjoyed.

Universal’s marketing campaign, which focused on a little, yellow and adorable crew of supporting characters, appeared to strike a chord with animation fans of all ages, as an unusually high 45% of ticket buyers were not families with children younger than 12. Those who saw the movie loved it, giving it an average grade of A, according to market research firm CinemaScore, foreshadowing a long box-office run that could easily take it to more than $150 million in the U.S. and Canada.

Illumination had an animation studio in France produce “Despicable Me” on a contract basis at a cost of only $69 million, less than half of what Pixar and DreamWorks typically spend. The film should be very profitable as a result, especially if it performs well overseas. The film had a good, but not great, $3.4-million opening in Russia amid very hot weather over the weekend, and has yet to hit other major foreign markets.

“Eclipse,” which premiered on a Wednesday, had a smaller second weekend than last year’s “New Moon,” which fell 70% to $42.9 million after its Friday debut. However, total ticket sales, including weekdays, have put the new “Twilight” picture in a virtual heat with its predecessor at the same point in their runs. “Eclipse” grossed a huge $237 million in its first 12 days, compared with $235.8 million for “New Moon.”

Overseas, “Eclipse” is beating “New Moon” in most major markets. “Eclipse” opened higher than its predecessor did in Great Britain and South Korea, but was slightly behind in France. Its international weekend take was $81.1 million and its foreign total is $219 million from 63 countries.

The opening for “Predators,” which stars Adrien Brody, was very good given that the film cost only about $40 million. The reboot of the science-fiction action franchise drew a mix of younger men new to the movies and older ones who probably remember the 1987 original that starred Arnold Schwarzenegger.

North American top 10, 9-11 July 2010

1. Despicable Me, $60.1m.

2. The Twilight Saga: Eclipse, $33.4m. Total: $237m

3. Predators, $25.3m

4. Toy Story 3, $22m. Total: $340.2m

5. The Last Airbender, $17.2m. Total: $100.2m

6. Grown Ups, $16.4m. Total: $111.3m

7. Knight and Day, $7.9m. Total: $61.9m

8. The Karate Kid, $5.7m. Total: $164.6m

9. The A-Team, $1.8m. Total: $73.9m

10. Cyrus, $1.4m. Total: $3.5m

The Twilight Trio is about to become very wealthy.

The Twilight Saga: Eclipse sailed to the top of the box office over the weekend. The third installment in the wildly-popular blockbuster film franchise has earned $161 million since hitting theaters on June 30.

Now the movie’s three stars are set to rake in a substantial sum of dough after landing a reported deal for the series finale that will gift the talent behind The Saga’s central characters with base salaries of $25 million each.

Twilighters Robert Pattinson, Kristen Stewart, and Taylor Lautner are reportedly guaranteed at least $25 million a piece to appear in the final two Twilight films, Breaking Dawn Parts I and II, Hollywood insiders gushed to NY Mag’s Vulture Column this week. In addition, the twentysomething stars have been offered 7.5% of the film’s theatrical gross, which could result in a final payday of $41 million for each.

Continuing along on the up-and-up, “Eclipse” is still raking in big sales at the box office.

An updated estimate says the vampire flick earned $28.6 million on Friday (July 2) putting the sales at $121.3 million in its first three days of release.

According to box office estimates, for the standard, three-day weekend (Friday through Sunday), the film is projected to earn $80.2 million.

With Monday thrown in the mix, the four-day holiday weekend is expected to gross $106.1 million.

They’re in town for the big UK premiere of “Eclipse” tonight, and this morning (July 1) Ashley Greene, Xavier Samuel, and Kellan Lutz were all spotted doing some promotional duties.

All three costars headed over to the BBC Radio One Studios to do an interview and talk about the already-massively-successful new flick.

Ms. Green, who plays Alice Cullen, looked fabulous in a black leather jacket/skirt combo with a pink blouse and black heels.

Meanwhile, Xavier and Kellan both donned their Ray Ban designer sunglasses as they strolled past the paparazzi.

“Eclipse’ producer Wyck Godfrey confirmed that Twilight’s Kristen Stewart and Robert Pattinson are in fact bumping uglies.

The two have been rumored to have been dating but have avoided public displays of affection and have never talked about any romantic relationship in public. Adding to the intrigue and lack of answers is Pattinson largely sitting out the press for ‘Eclipse,’ as he’s filming. Instead Stewart had been at the Rome and Sydney and New York premieres with other costar Taylor Lautner. Lautner was also her Oscars date.

Pattinson only attended the LA premiere, as photographed left, and has limited his television interviews to Leno and the MTV Movie Awards.

Back to the outing! Partway through a Q&A with Time, read it all here, Godfrey was asked what he thought of their relationship.

The thing I do think about is, Oh my God, I hope they stay together. Because it could be awkward on set in the next movie if they have a huge falling out. It’s like, Wow, they have to portray this love story through two more movies. God, I hope they stay together; please stay together. That’s what affects my day-to-day.

But you walk by newsstands and it’s a publicist’s dream: they are on every cover.
I don’t feel it’s out there anymore. Do people still report on it? If you look at people who have a stable personal life, the rags get tired of them. I think we’re heading to that place where they are together and that’s their life and we better find someone new to create drama out of.

‘Eclipse’ is now in theaters.

Kristen Stewart’s mom is raising wolf-dog hybrids, which the Twilight actress says are “really sweet.”

She told David Letterman “Jack falls at my feet.”

While legal in some states, Stewart did not recommend people rush out and buy them.

Letterman seemed to be having fun with her when he talked about the wolves in Yellowstone that take down elk as prey, but Stewart would have no part of it. It progresses as a normal conversation until she interrupts Dave with a joke about hunters.

Some people should just not speak… EVER!

Robert Pattinson, Kristen Stewart, Taylor Lautner, and the rest of the cast of Stephenie Meyer’s wildly-popular Twilight Saga were treated to a side-splitting video spoof of the cast of MTV’s beach-themed reality soap Jersey Shore in character as Twilight characters Jacob, Edward, and Bella during Jimmy Kimmel Live’s Twilight Eclipse Special on Wednesday night.

There’s future fashion designer (Insert eye-rolling here….) Mike “The Situation” Sorrentino lounging in a tanning bed coffin as shirtless bloodsucker Edward Cullen. Nicole “Snooki” Polizzi ditches her stilettos and leggings to tackle Kristen’s role as Bella Swan, while DJ Pauly D fills-in for Taylor Lautner as werewolf Jacob Black. Even Jimmy gets in on the fun, playing Bella’s dad and Forks police chief Charlie Swan.

We don’t know which is funnier: Watching Pauly lick himself of seeing a blood-thirsty Ronnie deck Snooki right in the kisser.

The Twilight Saga: Eclipse opens in theaters June 30.

Kristen Stewart, Taylor Lautner and Robert Pattinson her cover the latest issues of EW, on stands Friday. The Twilight studs are on a cover of their own.

The trio opened up to the mag to do a little rumor control:

Kristen on confessing her rumored romance with Rob backstage on The Oprah Winfrey Show: “She glided over to me – and she was strong, by the way, really firm hands – and she said, ‘How are you?’ I said, ‘Good.’ She said, ‘Good. Are you nervous?’ I said, ‘Yeah, I am, but I think I’m OK.’ She said, ‘Good. We’ll have fun.’ And then she just walked away. And that was the most I talked to her backstage.”

Kristen on comparing paparazzi pics of herself to rape: “I’m so sensitive about stuff like that. It is the one subject that means a lot to me. I made one movie directly concerning it and I made another one where my character has a horrible history of rape. I talked to a lot of people about it. I used the wrong word. I should have said ‘violated.’ But I’m young and emotional. It’s just the way it goes sometimes. I probably shouldn’t say this, but I just feel like people got so excited once they saw that it was me. It was like, ‘Sweet! Lets get her!’”

Rob defending Kristen: “None of those associations came out and gave a statement [criticizing Kristen] without being called upon by the media first – who were doing it specifically to get hits on their websites. That whole system of Internet journalists, where no one is called to account, is almost entirely about hate. All these people get away with doing it because they have no responsibility to anyone. All they need is to get a salacious headline and people click on it, because it’s easy… All of us stick together as well. There are so many little nerds behind their computers, on their little blogs.”

Following in the footsteps of the ‘Harry Potter’ franchise (ala “Harry Potter and the Deathly Hallows), Summit Entertainment announced Friday that ‘The Twilight Saga: Breaking Dawn’ will be split into two separate films, E! Online reports. The first part one slated for a Nov. 18, 2011 release. Melissa Rosenberg is nailing down the new scripts, which will be directed by Academy Award winner Bill Condon. The press release states production will begin on ‘Breaking Dawn’ this fall.

The installment is based on the fourth novel in author Stephenie Meyer’s Twilight series and is set to star Kristen Stewart, Robert Pattinson and Taylor Lautner along with Billy Burke as Charlie Swan and returning members of the Cullen Family including Peter Facinelli as Carlisle, Elizabeth Reaser as Esme, Jackson Rathbone as Jasper, Nikki Reed as Rosalie, Ashley Greene as Alice and Kellan Lutz as Emmett.

Fans of ‘Twilight’ got a taste of ‘Eclipse’ during the MTV Movie Awards in a clip that shows Bella leaning toward Team Jacob. Check out the clip from ‘The Twilight Saga: Eclipse,’ opening everywhere June 30.