Meatballs Holds Off Bruce Willis and Fame

The ComingSoon.net Box Office Report has been updated with studio estimates for the weekend.

Despite the release of three new movies, the animated comedy Cloudy with a Chance of Meatballs (Sony) based on the popular children's book by Judi Barrett remained at #1 with an estimated $24.6 million, a minimal 19% drop from its impressive opening weekend. The $100 million movie has grossed $60 million in ten days.

The main competition came from Surrogates (Disney/Touchstone), Bruce Willis' first action movie since 2007's Live Free or Die Hard, but it opened with an estimated $15 million in nearly 3,000 theaters, way below all expectations, for second place.

The remake of Alan Parker's 1980 musical Fame (MGM) opened in third place with $10 million in just over 3,000 theaters, averaging $3,241 per venue.

Steven Soderbergh's The Informant! (Warner Bros.) starring Matt Damon, dropped to fourth place with $6.9 million, down a respectable 34% from its opening weekend, with a ten-day gross of $21 million.

Fifth place went to Tyler Perry's I Can Do Bad All By Myself, which added $4.7 million to its total gross of $44.5 million in three weeks.

The sci-fi thriller Pandorum (Overture Films), starring Dennis Quaid and Ben Foster, failed to attract much of an audience, bringing in just $4.4 million in 2,506 theaters for sixth place.

The Jennifer Aniston-Aaron Eckhart romantic drama Love Happens dropped to seventh place in its second weekend with $4.3 million to bring its total to $14.8 million.

The Megan Fox horror-comedy Jennifer Body (20th Century Fox) took in $3.5 million in its second weekend, off 49% from last week, to take eighth place with a total of $12.3 million.

At #9... it was 9 (Focus Features), Shane Acker's animated fantasy, which has grossed $27.1 million in three weeks, followed by Quentin Tarantino's Inglourious Basterds, which added $2.7 million to its impressive box office gross of $114.4 million.

The Top 10 grossed an estimated $79 million, down slightly from the last weekend in September last year when Shia Labeouf's Eagle Eye (DreamWorks) topped the box office with $29 million, followed by the Richard Gere-Diane Lane drama Nights in Rodanthe (Warner Bros.)

The per-theater-average winner of the weekend was Michael Moore's new documentary Capitalism: A Love Story (Overture Films), which opened in four theaters in New York and L.A. on Wednesday following its successful premieres in Venice and Toronto to gross $240 thousand over the weekend, an impressive $60 thousand per site.

Also opening in New York and L.A., the biopic Coco Before Chanel (Sony Classics) with Audrey Tautou brought in $177 thousand in 5 venues, while Scott Hicks' drama The Boys Are Back (Miramax), starring Clive Owen, took in roughly $51 thousand at 6 venues.

Tucker Max's controverial biopic I Hope They Serve Beer in Hell (Freestyle Releasing) hit 120 theaters where it grossed $369 thousand or $3,000 per venue.