The Numbers

Cloudy With A Chance Of Meatballs fell out of the top five but still earned $5.18 million on 2568 screens in 39 markets for a total of $52.45 million so far. This was only 31% lower than last weekend, with no major market openings. In fact, the film doesn't have another major market opening till it debuts in Australia at the end of the month, while it still has openings in Italy and Spain by the end of the year, and it doesn't end its run till early next year with openings in Germany and some midlevel markets.

With the beginning of November comes the start of Awards Season, so we should be seeing more and more potential Awards Season players coming out over the coming weeks. However, while there is one such release this week, Precious, it is overshadowing all of the other new releases.

There's only one truly wide release next weekend, and it's the apocalyptic 2012, which tries to predict the date of the end of the world. Your job is much less difficult, simply predict the opening weekend box office of 2012. Whoever comes the closest to predicting the film's opening 3-day weekend box office (Friday to Sunday), without going over, will win a copy of Jackass - The Lost Tapes on DVD, as well as Rob Dyrdek's Fantasy Factory - Season One on DVD. Meanwhile, whoever comes the closest to predicting the film's opening 3-day weekend box office (Friday to Sunday), without going under, will also win a copy of Rob Dyrdek's Fantasy Factory - Season One on DVD. Entries must be received by 10 a.m., Pacific Time on Friday to be eligible, so don't delay!

The winners of our Predict It contest were determined and they are...

The holiday season unofficial starts this weekend with the first Christmas release of the year. Disney's A Christmas Carol is clearly the favorite to top the chart, but it is the only big release coming out this week, and it is unlikely to match last year's winner, Madagascar 2. This means 2009 will have a tough time keeping up with last year's pace.

There was a new number on film on the international chart this past weekend, as This Is It took top spot with $51.07 million on 8910 screens in 74 markets over the weekend for a total of $68.93 million. Individual markets were led by the U.K. where it pulled in first place with $7.96 million on 498 screens, while it also led in Germany with $6.3 million on 930 screens, France with $5.8 million on 484, Japan with $5.75 million on 321, and Australia with $3.35 million on 293. In all of these markets the film did better than it did here, given the relative sizes involved, but it was still below expectations after all of the talk about record-breaking pre-orders for tickets. Other major markets include Italy where it opened in third place with $2.16 million on 478 screens over the weekend and $3.19 million in total, while it earned second in Spain with $2.04 million on 377 screens over the weekend and $2.72 million in total. In Russia it only managed fourth place with $873,000 on 231 screens while it only managed sixth place with $325,000 on 210 screens over the weekend and $422,000 in total.

It came as no surprise that Transformers - Revenge of the Fallen was the best selling new release and the best selling DVD on the chart this week. During its first week of release, it sold 5.33 million units and generated $122.49 million in consumer spending at retail, which makes it the third-best selling DVD of the year and the second best in terms of revenue generated after just one week of release.

It was almost a slow week for new releases, sort of. Granted, we had the biggest movie of the year come out on the home market, but that was practically the only release of note. That release, Transformers - Revenge of the Fallen, easily won the race to top the rental chart with nearly three times the rentals as The Proposal managed during its second week of release.

The per theater chart took a hit over the weekend and no movie topped $10,000; however, An Education was close with an average of $9,737 in 48 theaters.

It was a tough weekend at the box office, then again, that's always the case when Halloween lands on a weekend. Halloween in one of the worst days at the box office; it's almost as bad as Christmas Eve. And at least with Christmas Eve, you have Christmas Day to look forward to. The overall box office was down 21.8% from last weekend to just $91 million; however, that was 3.5% higher than the same weekend last year. Year-to-date, 2009 remains well head of 2008 at $8.56 billion to $7.95 billion.