Cloudy With a Chance of Meatballs 2 tops the weekend box office, raking in $35 million. The film is a much needed success for Sony Pictures, who had a turbulent summer.
Cloudy 2 opened $5 million ahead of the 2009 original, which earned a total of $243 million around the world.
“It’s remarkable that it did as well as and surpassed the first film,” Rory Bruer, the head of distribution at Sony Pictures, said to ABC News. “It’s one of those films that just draws you in.”
Sony needed to catch audiences' attention after its lackluster summer run. After Earth and White House Down both flopped and led to the firing of marketing chief, Matt Weinstock. Sony later hired Charles Sipkins, a PR crisis expert.
Bruer told TheWrap, “This is a really nice win for us and positions us for a strong run both here and overseas.”
With Cloudy 2’s opening week success, the studio is poised to have a redeeming fall. The studio will release Tom Hanks’ Captain Phillips and its Carrie remake in October. In December, David O. Russell’s American Hustle and George Clooney’s The Monuments Men will hit theaters.
The animated film featuring the voices of Bill Hader, Anna Faris, and Will Forte beat out last week’s box office winner, Prisoners. Ron Howard’s racing film, Rush, took third place, Baggage Claim trailed in fourth, and Joseph Gordon-Levitt’s Don Jon was close behind in fifth.
Image: Sony Pictures Animation