Top ten box office weekend estimates: "Cloudy" is still sunny and making money

The animated comedy "Cloudy With A Chance of Meatballs" stayed atop the national box office with an estimated $24.6 million in ticket sales. Falling a mere 19% from last weekend's impressive take of $30 million, the Sony picture looks like it is benefiting from strong word-of-mouth among families (Saturday's gross jumped a whopping 99% over Friday's take), which will guarantee that the CG-animated feature will easily clear the $100 million mark in a few weeks time. A few days ago, I thought that the 3-D reissue of the first two "Toy Story" films might pose a serious threat to "Cloudy"s box office. But with the Pixar offering opening on 1,600 screens (or half of 'Cloudy's screen count), the damage done by Buzz and Woody could be somewhat diminished. After ten days, "Cloudy" has covered a terrific $60 million in sales.

Second place went to the Bruce Willis sci-fi actionier "Surrogates" with a mediocre $15 million in sales from 2,951 screens. The new $100 million film from the "Die Hard" star and "Terminator 3" director Jonathan Mostow, might have had an intriguing-enough premise to green-light the production, but the marketing campaign didn't do a decent enough job to sell it as anything more than a combo of "I, Robot", "Minority Report" and "A.I.". Unless word-of-mouth is spectacular, watch for Bald Brucie's latest film to do better on home video in a few months time.

Third place went another new film, the PG-rated remake of the 1980 film "Fame" with a weak $10 million from 3,096 screens. Burdened with bad reviews, weak word-of-mouth and being labeled a "High School Musical" clone, "Fame" did struggling distributor MGM no favors by having such a lousy opening.

Fourth place went to the Matt Damon/Steven Soderbergh comedy "The Informant!", which nabbed roughly $6.9 million. Off only 34%, the film has pulled $21 million to date and might end its run with a respectable $35 million in sales. Fifth place went to Tyler Perry's fast-fading but profitable "I Can Do Bad All By Myself" with $4.75 million in sales. Down 52% from last weekend, the film has pulled $44.5 million and should finish in the $50 million range.

Sixth went to the third opener of the week, "Pandorum", which flatlined with $4.4 mil from 2,506 screens. If sci-fi fans were indifferent to the Willis movie, they were flat out apathetic to the Dennis Quaid entry. Seventh place went to the Jennifer Aniston romace flick "Love Happens" with $4.3 million and a ten-day gross of $14.8 million.

Eighth spot went to "Jennifer's Body" which held up better than expected with $3.5 million and an overall gross of $12.3 million. Ninth spot was secured by "9" with $2.83 mil and a $27.1 mil to date. Rounding out the top ten in its sixth week was Quentin Tarantino's "Inglourious Basterds" with $2.7 mil and an overall gross of $114.5 million.