‘Meatballs’ is still No. 1

Movie audiences just love a whimsical weather forecast. Or, at least, they preferred it over the weekend to robo-crime and striving teens.
Cloudy With a Chance of Meatballs dished up $24.6 million in gate receipts to remain No. 1 at the box office for a second straight weekend.

That lifted the hefty helping for Sony’s animated tale to $60 million after 10 days in theaters, according to studio estimates released yesterday.

Surrogates, a big-budget sci-fi thriller starring Bruce Willis about the murder of couch potatoes living vicariously through robotic avatars, debuted at No. 2 with $15 million.

Fame, a remake of the ’80s song and dance fest about students at a performing-arts high school in New York, opened in third place with $10 million.

The performance of Surrogates, from Disney’s Touchstone Pictures, disappointed the suits. “Unfortunately, I don’t think this was a great moviegoing weekend, for whatever reason,” said Chuck Viane, head of distribution for Disney. “I’m disappointed we’re not No. 1, but very happy we beat the other films we opened against.”

Viane was right: It wasn’t a great weekend for Hollywood. The domestic gross of $100.5 million was down 4.5 percent from the same weekend last year.

Cloudy With a Chance of Meatballs lost little of its spice after a week as its receipts dropped only 19 percent from a $30.3 million opening weekend. Revenue for many films fall 50 percent or more in their second weekends.

Michael Moore’s documentary Capitalism: A Love Story did well in limited release, taking in $240,000 over the weekend in just four theaters and raising its total to $306,586 since premiering Wednesday. It expands nationwide Friday.