"Cloudy With A Chance Of Meatballs" Tops U.S. Box Office

It easily beat The Informant! - starring Matt Damon as a whistle blower with bipolar disorder - which opened in second with $10.5m (Ј6.5m).

Last week's number one, Tyler Perry's I Can Do Bad All By Myself, was in third place, taking $10m (Ј6.2m).

The film, co-starring Aaron Eckhart, took $8.5m (Ј5.3m).

The top five was rounded out by horror film Jennifer's Body - also on its opening weekend - with $6.8m (Ј4.2m).

The film, penned by Diablo Cody - the Oscar-winning writer of Juno writer, stars Megan Fox as a possessed rock fan, BBC reports.

It was also reported, Sony's animated film opens at No. 1, but its $30.1 million is so-so. Three other movies have soft debuts.

"Cloudy With a Chance of Meatballs" fared a little better than Sony's first animated film, "Open Season," and is on track to earn $100 million in the U.S. (Sony Pictures Animation / May 26)

Sony's efforts to gain a foothold in the highly competitive computer-generated animation market continue to generate mixed results, as "Cloudy With a Chance of Meatballs" opened to a so-so $30.1 million this weekend in the U.S. and Canada, according to studio estimates, The Los Angeles Times reports.

News agencies also report, "Cloudy With A Chance Of Meatballs" was adapted from a 1978 children's book of the same name by Judi and Ron Barrett.

When Mr. T arrives at Solley's diner in the San Fernando Valley, he carries a duffel bag full of gifts: candy bars with his face on the label (he's a pitchman for Snickers) and electronic "Mr. T in Your Pocket" keychains.

Most of all, both he and Santa owe their popularity to little kids. "I remember during the A-Team days, kids turned their parents on to Mr. T, because the parents were like, 'I don't know about that. Who is that guy? He's fighting and whatnot.' But the kids would say, 'No, Daddy ... Mr. T likes kids!' "

Now the 57-year-old tough guy is making a comeback to his favorite audience with the 3-D cartoon Cloudy With a Chance of Meatballs, thanks to the two directors who were kids in the '80s, watching him as the hero B.A. Baracus on The A-Team, fearing him as the villain Clubber Lang in Rocky III, tuning in to his Saturday morning cartoon and eating Mr. T brand cereal, USA Today reports.