Box Office: Weekend (8/18-8/20)

By Chase Kahn

Not in the least big surprisingly, the 3D animator Cloudy with a Chance of Meatballs dominated the weekend with $30.1 million with Steven Soderbergh's The Informant! coming in second with a modest $10.5 million.

The Jennifer Aniston soft-serve buffet, Love Happens, came in fourth with $8.4 million and Diablo Cody's Megan Fox script Jennifer's Body flopped with $6.8 million (5th), putting a serious dent in Fox's box office power.

Interesting trends elsewhere as Jane Campion's Bright Star -- a lavishly detailed, performed and composed period piece without an ounce of substance in the drama department -- opened in 19 screens to the tune of a very nice $10,000 per theater average which translates to a $207,000 opening. Bright Star is the first film under the new Apparition label and will expand to over 100 screens next week.

The bomb squad is out for Gamer, the Gerard Butler/Death Race/video-game testosterone enhancer. The Lionsgate action film dropped a gaudy 61% in its third week for a grand cume of $18 million.