UPDATE: ‘Eclipse’ falls just short of single-day box-office record

It’s bigger than Iron Man 2-Robin Hood.

It’s bigger than Shrek: The Final Chapter-Sex and the City 2.

It’s monsters vs. toys, folks. The battle of the summer.

The New York Times‘ Arts Beat blog reports that The Twilight Saga: Eclipse has already beaten one box-office record. Could this spell trouble at the top for Toy Story 3?

Eclipse is now the No. 1 all-time champ for 12:01 a.m. showings, scoring $30 million and beating the previous record, held by… The Twilight Saga: New Moon. New Moon pulled in $26.3 million.

Eclipse also set the record for midnight showings at IMAX theaters, selling more than $1 million and beating Transformers 2.

As the Times article points out, the next big record for Eclipse to reach is the biggest single-day gross — $72.7 mililon.

And that might spell doom for Toy Story 3 as box office leader. Last weekend, TS3 pulled in $59 million, which might be seriously threatened by Eclipse‘s intense following.

The other major release this weekend, The Last Airbender, might catch those not interested in the Twilight films — and let’s face it, if you haven’t seen the first two Twilight pics, you aren’t going to see this one first, right?

However, the bad news for Airbender is that it’s getting slapped around by critics. It’s scored a 9-percent “fresh” rating on Rotten Tomatoes, and is reviled so much that one, Roger Moore of the Orlando Sentinel, said, “This colossal folly, the fiasco of the summer of 2010 — gives us all a ringside seat at the sight of Mr. ‘I See Dead People’s’ career gurgling down the drain.”

Meanwhile, Eclipse has a 51-percent rating, but like many films with massive buzz, it’s pretty much critic-proof.