If the banter around my workplace is any indication, the first Twilight movie was without question pretty bad, but the books were all very good. I haven’t gotten a chance to read the books myself, but my fiancee is insisting that I go with her to the next set of movies, and now I at least have some dates to associate with when I’ll have to suffer through them. The release dates for the next two sequels have been officially announced.

The first sequel, “New Moon,” will be released November 20 by Summit Entertainment. It sports a slightly beefier budget than it’s predecessor (many viewers complained that the visual effects were very weak in the first movie) and the following sequel, “Eclipse” will be showing up seven months later on June 30, 2010.

If you’re curious, no director has been announced for Eclipse just yet, but “New Moon” will be post-production when Eclipse starts shooting. In all likelyhood that means that Chris Weitz is out as a repeat. The previous director Catherin Hardwicke got tossed after saying that the turnaround time demanded by Summit Entertainment wouldn’t be long enough to get the second film done in something-other-than-horrible fashion. We’ll have to wait and see.