A new name has been cast in The Twilight Saga: Breaking Dawn, as announced by author Stephenie Meyer on The Twilight Saga Facebook page.

Meyer reveals that Mackenzie Foy has joined the cast of the two-part final movie. The 9-year-old actress will play the part of (SPOILER Warning?) Edward Cullen (Robert Pattinson) and Bella Swan’s (Kristen Stewart) love-baby, Renesmee Cullen, a half-vampire/half-human member of the Olympic Coven. She’s also the imprintee of Jacob Black (Taylor Lautner)… whatever that might mean. You Twilight fans should all know what this stuff means.

Summit Entertainment has revealed today that The Twilight Saga: Breaking Dawn Part 2 will open in theaters on November 16, 2012, a year after its Part 1 predecessor.

Following the lead of the Harry Potter film franchise, the studio confirmed back in June that the big-screen adaptation of Stephenie Meyer‘s final Twilight Saga novel would be broken up into two films, both of which will be directed by Bill Condon.

Last month, it was announced that filming would begin on the final movies this Fall, with The Twilight Saga: Breaking Dawn Part 1 to be released in theaters on November 18, 2011. Filming will take place in both Baton Rouge, Louisiana in the United States and Vancouver, BC in Canada [Read “˜Twilight Saga: Breaking Dawn’ Filming Locations & Start Date].

The Twilight Saga: Eclipse
Directed by David Slade
Starring Kristen Stewart, Robert Pattinson, Taylor Lautner
Rated PG-13
Release date: June 30, 2010

Hailing The Twilight Saga: Eclipse the best of the series isn’t the ringing endorsement it sounds. Hearing that won’t change the minds of any non-believers and if you are already among the following, you aren’t one that needs converting. It most certainly is, but it’s a pretty relative statement.

I have always taken the stance of non-participation in the popular recreation of Twilight bashing. Attacking the mob mentality of these zealots is a bandwagon that would be easy to jump on, but Lord knows I liked some awful movies when I was younger, so I’ve always given the series a fair shake. They haven’t been great, in fact they have been downright ugly at times, but I can see why so many fans like them. A little.

Eclipse starts off pretty promising. Dark and raining in Seattle, a young man is being chased and hunted by something. This is the first time in this series I got the sense that vampires are dangerous and anything but sparkly and cuddly. It turns out to be Victoria (Bryce Dallas Howard), who is still hellbent on exacting revenge on Edward Cullen (Robert Pattinson) for killing her boyfriend James in the first film. Her plan is to find and kill Bella (Kristen Stewart), presumably so Edward can feel what she felt when her boyfriend died. The young man ends up being a college student from Forks, Riley Biers (Xavier Samuel), who is turned and tricked by Victoria into helping her assemble an army of newborn vampires to help take down Bella and the Cullen vampire clan.

If you’ve been following the progress of The Twilight Saga: Breaking Dawn at all, you know it’s been long-expected and long-assumed that the final chapter to the film series would be split into two films.

The move was expected as it would be in an attempt to cover as much of the story’s details as possible and of course to pile as much cash into the bank as they possibly could before the franchise’s end.

In a press release put out by Summit Entertainment today, it was finally made official: Breaking Dawn will indeed be a two-part movie. The film will go into production some time this fall, and the first of these two movies will be released in November of 2011.

ComingSoon recently had the chance to talk with Nicholas Stoller, writer and director of Forgetting Sarah Marshall and the upcoming comedy, Get Him To The Greek. Stoller chatted about some of his upcoming projects, including the new movie based on the popular Hasbro toy, Stretch Armstrong.

The movie, which will star The Twilight Saga‘s Taylor Lautner, is based on the toy of the same name, which is distinguishable by its squishy body that was able to stretch out to great lengths. The script was originally penned by Steve Oedekerk, but when Monsters vs. Aliens director Rob Letterman was hired to helm, he decided to bring in another writer, and Stoller asked him for the chance. The duo recently worked together on Letterman’s Gulliver’s Travels, which stars Jack Black and Stoller’s good friend Jason Segel.