Cloudy With a Chance of Meatballs enjoyed the best second weekend hold of the year for a major release to win the weekend at the box office. The 3D family movie earned $24.6 million, by Sony's estimate, which is down just 19% from its opening. The studio will be hoping that the great word-of-mouth will keep the movie going even with the arrival of the Toy Story 3D Double Feature next weekend.

Disney's Surrogates landed in second place with an estimated $15 million, which will be a disappointment for the studio, particularly given an $80 million estimated price tag for the movie. Fame was also disappointing with just a shade over $10 million, which will be less of an issue for MGM given its much lower budget, but won't help the studio's dire financial plight much.

Pandorum opened with $4.4 million, which is again below expectations. Overture did have the consolation of a great opening weekend for Capitalism: A Love Story, which posted $240,000 in just four theaters for $310,000 after five days in release.

The other standout limited release was Coco Before Chanel, which earned $177,000 in five theaters. On the back of the fine performance of The September Issue in limited release, it seems as though there's a rich niche for fashion-industry movies at the moment.

Date posted: 2009-09-27