Weekend Box Office Preview: It's going to be 'Cloudy' again this weekend

This weekend three new films, two science-fiction and one musical, will enter the crowded box office field in the hopes of getting a piece of the financial action. None, however, will displace last week's champ "Cloudy With A Chance of Meatballs" from the number one spot.

Opening to a nice-sized $30 million gross, "Cloudy With A Chance of Meatballs" has held pretty well for an animated feature playing in September. With positive word-of-mouth from both critics and audiences alike, the film could experience a drop of only 35-40%. The real challenge for the film won't be a new animated film, but a pair of older ones coming out next week, and in 3-D to boot: "Toy Story" and "Toy Story 2". With a whole new generation yet to experience Buzz and Woody on the big screen, watch for Pixar's dynamic duo to take a sizeable chunk out of "Cloudy"s grosses next weekend. In the meantime, the film will be holding course in over 3,100 theaters, which should yield it between $18-20 million in sales.

Bruce Willis has been rather low-key over the past couple of years. Despite performances in a pair of smaller films recently, the last time the 54-year old headlined a film was 2007's "Live Free or Die Hard", which turned out to be the highest grosser of that series. Well, Bruce is back in Jonathan Mostow's sci-fi thriller "Surrogates". Looking like a mash-up of "Minority Report", "I, Robot" and "A.I." among others, the film has been advertised pretty heavily over the past couple of weeks but buzz has been fairly muted. Early reviews have also been less than kind to it as well. Running a lean 88 minutes, "Surrogates" might benefit from being able to squeeze in a few extra screenings, but possible bad word-of-mouth might make that extended schedule all for naught. Opening in 2,700 screens, "Surrogates" might snag $16 million this weekend.

Another science-fiction entry opening this weekend is "Pandorum". Starring Dennis Quaid, the film looks like a cross between "Event Horizon", "Alien" and "Near Dark". I wish I could say more about the film beyond the other films it reminds me of, but I really don't know all that much about it. And with "Pandorum" opening head-to-head against "Surrogates", the potential opening weekend audience might be curtailed as sci-fi fans might opt for Bald Bruce instead of Dandy Dennis. Opening on 2,400 screens, "Pandorum" might grab $8 million this weekend before heading off to home video by year's end.

The third big opening of the weekend is MGM's remake of the 1980 Alan Parker film "Fame". Remaking this film is pretty much a no-brainer as the story of students in a New York City Performing Arts school is one that can be tailored to teens and young adults without much of a hassle. Of course, coming up with a cast of young adults who can act, a director who knows what he's doing (such as Alan Parker) and a script that doesn't suck always helps things move along as well. From the few individuals that I know who have seen the film, this new version offers none of those. The success on the film will have to rely on how well the marketing campaign has been in targeting the teen crowd. Soundtrack sales might help out as well. Opening on over 3,000 screens, "Fame" might pull in around $13 million for the weekend.

The remainder of the top ten will see the holdovers from last weekend dropping like stones as "Jennifer's Body", "The Informant!" and "Love Happens" should all encounter drops of roughly 55 to 60% each. "Jennifer" should limp to $2.8 million, while "Informant" might nab $5.5 mil and "Love" will be lucky to reach $3.5 mil.

Check back Sunday for a recap on the weekend box office. Aside from the "Toy Story" reissues, next week will bring the horror comedy "Zombieland", the roller derby comedy "Whip It" and the Ricky Gervais comedy "The Invention of Lying".