The success of an animated movie with a $100M budget, based on a well-loved childrens’ book, would not normally be a surprise, but in a week when all eyes where on Megan Fox, Cloudy with a Chance of Meatballs kind of snuck under the fence. The adaptation of Judi Barrett’s book, drops the charming illustration style of (former) husband Ron, in favor of generic-looking CGI, typical of Sony’s animation division (Open Season, 2006; Surf’s Up, 2007), but critical reaction was favorable and the weekend box office take of $30.30M in 3,119 theaters, with about half the take coming from those equipped with 3-D, and a little over $2.5M from 127 IMAX venues, strengthens their reputation.
Steven Soderbergh’s The Informant followed up in distant second place at $10.46M, Tyler Perry's I Can Do Bad All By Myself fell an expected 58% to come in third with $9.87M, and nobody will be shocked that the Jennifer Aniston rom-com Love Happens tanked at $8.05M (meaning, presumably, that there won't be a sequel entitled Shit Actually).
No doubt heads would be rolling at Fox Atomic if they hadn't already closed the division down, so the hand-wringing over the dismal $6.86M take of the ubiquitous Jennifer's Body will be left to the pundits, who will no doubt, as with Halloween II, conveniently overlook the trim budget (just $16M here), and declare this the end of Megan Fox and Diablo Cody. Irritated though we might be by all those pop-up Flash ads getting on the way of our Web experience, we should take a moment to grieve the failure of a genre film that is neither a remake, nor a sequel, nor is it based on a teen or graphic novel, or computer game, and pray this doesn't lead to a further rash of dismal remakes.
At #6, 9 drops 48% on an additional 399 screens, to take $5.56M, for a two week total of $22.92M, and at #7 Inglourious Basterds hits $110.11, with a weekend take of $3.81M, making it the highest grossing of Tarantino's movies, and also the one with the largest overseas earnings.
Last week's rom-com flop All About Steve took $3.4M at #8, leaving Sorority Row in the #9 position, with a predictable second week drop of 50% and a weekend take of $2.5M on a running gross of $8.9M – still well short of its $12.5M budget. The Final Destination, which is – God help us - looking so far like the horror hit of the fall, took $2.39M, for a total of $62.40M at #10, while Whiteout was obliterated at #11, with $2.13M, and a total of $8.55M – it's $35M budget now looking like a cert for a tax right-off.
Of the stragglers, District 9 is at #13, with $1.91M for the weekend and $111.68M total; Gamer took $1.41M for $18.99M after three weeks; GI Joe: Rise of the Cobra took $1.37M, bringing its seven week total to $146.19M; The Time Traveler's Wife still managed over $1M for a $60.82M total, not bad on a $29M budget; and Halloween II halved its screen count, and saw weekend earning of $751,894, for a total of $31.47M against its $15 budget.
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