Weekend Movie News Wrap Up: September 27, 2009

This week:

The box office is still Cloudy; Neve Campbell Screams again; Dourif and Plummer confess to a Priest; TNT give some Basterd’s $12 million and Paul Dano decides to Cruise with Diaz.

Cloudy With A Chance Of Meatballs retained the top spot and banked another $24.6 million over the weekend. The animated tale has now made a pretty good $60 million so far.

Bruce Willis had to settle for the runner-up position for Surrogates. The comic book adaptation made a so-so $15 million despite a trim 88 minute running time.

The Fame remake grossed $10 million over the weekend. There’s really nothing that I can say about this.

The Informant brought in a little under $7 million on its second weekend giving the new Matt Damon/Steven Soderbergh team-up $20 million in the bank so far. Off a slim 33% percent from last week means that this looks to have some legs.

Tyler Perry’s I Can Do Bad All By Myself made just under $5 million this weekend giving the film a $44 million total. One word – profit!

The Dennis Quaid starrer Pandorum had a disappointing start with a just $4.4 million. DVD and cult status await.

Aaron Eckhart and Jennifer Aniston’s Love Happens brought in another $4.3 million. With just $14 million so far this will need strong international sales and DVD to seem like a good idea.

Megan Fox’s Jennifer’s Body dipped almost 50% from last weekends debut. With a total of just $12 million it looks like Fox is going to have to gain audience sympathy and some humility if she wants a career that won’t end up on the path marked direct-to-DVD.

9 was ninth this weekend after it grossed another $2.8 million. With $27 million as a total it would appear that this isn’t the break out hit that many had hoped.

Quentin Tarantino’s Inglourious Basterds brought in another $2.7 million giving the Brad Pitt starrer a $114 million total.

Movie News

1. Neve Campbell will return to the Scream franchise after the actress spent the best part of the last decade saying that she wouldn’t return to the horror film series.

The Weinstein Company plans to shoot Scream 4 in April or May, and they see this fourth film as a starting point for a new trilogy.

Campbell will joing Courtney Cox and David Arquette in the new film that might be directed by original helmer Wes Craven.

Source: Variety

2. Christopher Plummer and Brad Dourif have joined the cast of Scott Stewart’s Priest.

Paul Bettany leads the cast as a priest turned vampire killer. Maggie Q and Karl Urban also star.

Vampires – why are they so popular these days?

Source: Empire

3. TNT has paid just under $12 million for the television rights to Quentin Tarantino’s Inglourious Basterds.

The sale must come as a relief (and much needed cash) for The Weinstein Company who have a lot riding on the Brad Pitt film.

Television rights are usually 8-10% of a films box office take.

If you haven’t seen it – go see it now. It’s one of Tarantino’s best films.

Source: Variety

4. Paul Dano has joined the cast of the new Tom Cruise and Cameron Diaz action-comedy.

The actor will star alongside the Vanilla Sky pair in the James Mangold directed film that is currently without a title.

“Dano will play a charming but mysterious scientist whose invention is at the center of Cruise and Diaz’s chase.”

The script must be good because it took Cruise months to sign on after nearly every other script in Hollywood landed on his desk.

Source: Variety

That’s if for now. See you at the movies.