Weekend Box Office - Cloudy Days For Meatball Cash Flow

By Scott Gwin: 2009-09-20 19:23:10

It’s not easy being an animated movie these days. Unless you’re from Pixar or sequel to something established like Shrek or Ice Age, you can bank on having a rough road ahead. Cloudy with a Chance of Meatballs is the latest entry trying to turn obscurity into popularity and despite the fact that 9 out of 10 critics like it, the movie barely managed $30 million. That was easily enough for the number one spot and not bad for a September release (the third highest ever September opening), but a long ways from turning a profit against its $100 million production budget.

Neither having a big name like Damon in the lead or having an exclamation mark in the title was enough to draw a big crowd for Soderbergh’s offbeat drama The Informant!. The movie landed a very distant second place with $10 million, the lowest wide-release opening Soderbergh has suffered since Solaris bombed in theaters back in 2002.

Love Happens didn’t happen to get much love, bowing in at fourth place with only $8 million. That’s a poor showing for a Jennifer Aniston rom-com, especially one co-starring a presently popular figure like Aaron Eckhart.

But there was a Jennifer that did even worse. Horror flick Jennifer’s Body drew a sheepish $6.8 million. Clearly audiences didn’t go to see Transformers 2 on account of Megan Fox’s…er…talent. It’s also a low blow for writer Cody Diablo whose first screenplay, Juno slunk its way to more than $100 million over a lengthy run in theaters. Don’t expect Jennifer’s Body to have such a long appearance in theaters. In fact, don’t expect to see it in the top ten next week.

For the full weekend top ten check out the chart below: