"Cloudy With a Chance of Meatballs," a 3-D animated children movie by Sony has become a rare animation hit, with US$ 60 million in estimated ticket sales over nine days and holding the number one spot at the North American box office for a second straight weekend.

The goofy children comedy earned US$ 24.6 million in sales over the weekend, a slight 19 percent drop from the last week when the film debuted with US$ 30.3 million in theaters across the Unites States and Canada, according to preliminary statistics from the North American box office authorities released on Sunday.

A rare adult movie released from Disney opened in the number two spot. "Surrogates" garnered about US$ 15 million in its opening weekend. Set in a futuristic world where humans live in isolation and interact through surrogate robots and starring Bruce Willis as an FBI agent who is forced to leave his home to investigate the murders of others' surrogates, "Surrogates" had a solid per-theatre average of just over 5,000 dollas and gave audiences looking for a sci-fi action their fall season fix.

The third place spot went to another debut, "Fame" which opened with an estimated 10 million dollars in sales. A big screen version of a hit musical and movie in the 80s, MGM's "Fame" follows NYC talent attending the New York City High School for the Performing Arts to get specialized training that often leads to success as actors, singers and other entertainers. The movie found itself in a very competitive marketplace with the other PG- rated entry at the top of the chart grabbing a huge family audience.

With a production cost of just US$ 18 million, this MGM/ Lakeshore Entertainment co-production should find itself close to break even at the end of the day.

Rounding out the top five are: "The Informant," Warner Bros., US$ 6. 9 million this weekend, US$ 21 million over two weeks; "Tyler Perry's I Can Do Bad All By Myself," Lionsgate, US$ 4.8 million this weekend, US$ 44.6 million over three weeks.

(Xinhua News Agency September 28, 2009)