Willis film beaten by Meatballs

Cloudy With A Chance Of Meatballs is based on a 1978 children's book

Bruce Willis's latest action movie has been beaten at the North American box office by animation Cloudy With A Chance of Meatballs.

The 3D film raked in a further $24.6m (£15.4m), easily outperforming The Surrogates with $15m (£9.4m).

The remake of performing arts musical film Fame entered the chart at three, with takings of $10m (£6.3m).

Box office performance suffered an overall dip compared with the same weekend last year, falling 4.5%.

Some Hollywood analysts predicted Willis's film, made by Disney, would take the top spot.

US BOX OFFICE TOP FIVE 1 Cloudy With A Chance of Meatballs - $24.6m 2 The Surrogates - $15m 3 Fame - $10m 4 The Informant! -$6.9m 5 Tyler Perry's I Can Do Bad All By Myself - $4.8m Source: Hollywood.com

Chuck Viane, Disney's head of distribution, said: "I'm disappointed we're not number one, but very happy we beat the other films we opened against.

"Unfortunately, I don't think this was a great movie-going weekend, for whatever reason," he added.

But the makers of A Chance of Meatballs had reason to celebrate, as their ticket sales held up well - most films' takings slide by around 50% in their second weekends.

The animation, based on a 1978 children's book, tells the tale of a town where the weather comes in the form of food and drink.