Cloudy box office results

It seems most folks are more interested in whatever sits atop their tv stand than in what’s on the silver screen in the month of September; this month marks the worst month of box office results all year, and it’s not even close; although there’s another week remaining in the month, next week would have to come up with something like $150 million total to make up for how weak September has been to date.

Sitting alone above the $10 million mark in this week’s box office is animated runaway-hit family film, Cloudy With a Chance of Meatballs, which earned $30.1 million easily in its debut bow. However, with a production budget of $100 million, that still leaves the film less than one-third of the way to being in the black.

Tightly packed well behind Meatballs were the new Matt Damon vehicle, The Informant!, which managed $10.5 million, just enough to secure second place in its debut behind Tyler Perry’s I Can Do Bad All By Myself, now in its second week, which added $10 million even for a two-week total of $37.9 million.

No other movie cracked the $10.0 million level, but both were new movies this weekend; Love Happens took fourth place with $8.4 million, while Megan Fox vehicle Jennifer’s Body took fifth place with a mere $6.8 million.

The sad part is that The Informant!, Love Happens and Jennifer’s Body all played it safe with modest production budgets ranging between $16-$22 million, and yet with suck meager first-week returns, will likely struggle to get into the blank during their box office run, and will need to rely on strong DVD/Blu-Ray sales to rescue them from red ink.