That’s right, this film should be known as being from the mind of Chris Miller and Phil Lord. The team that brought us Cloudy with a Chance of Meatballs and MTV’s short-lived animated series Clone High.

One could say that the film’s focus points are Channing Tatum and Jonah Hill, but if you look at their track record lately, I’d be much more open to see a movie by Lord & Miller than the guys that starred in G.I. Joe and Get Him to the Greek.

The film is obviously a reboot of the classic 80s cop drama starring Johnny Depp and Richard Grieco, about two beat cops that have to go undercover in a local high school to take down the drug lords poisoning our youth.

The red band trailer is here now with tons of swearing and teen endangerment, so fun for the whole family! Check it out after the jump, and catch 21 Jump Street in theaters March 16th.

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Jonah Hill (Funny People, Superbad) who has been working on an update of the 80′s television show 21 Jump Street for Sony, has announced that the movie is in negotiations to sign it’s directors. Phil Lord and Christopher Miller, who directed September’s Cloudy With A Chance of Meatballs, are potentially signing on, according to the Hollywood Reporter blog.

For the duo, who have also written for shows How I Met Your Mother, created MTV’s Clone High and Extreme Movie, this will mark their first time directing a live-action feature. Fans of Clone High may also remember Lord as the voice of the deranged Principal Scudworth.

The new version of the undercover teenagers high school drama, as described by Hill in Complex Magazine, will be “an R-rated, insane, Bad-Boys-meets-John Hughes-type movie.” With Hill executive producing and probably starring, along with writer Michael Bacall, currently on the upcoming Scott Pilgrim vs. The World, directed by Edgar Wright.

Hill has also gone on record saying that there is room for Johnny Depp to make a return, if he wants. This sounds like a pretty interesting project, but all I want to know is if they’re going to get Holly Robinson (Peete) back.

When it comes to horror,  for the last several years October has been monopolized by the persistent and prolific offerings of a one Saw series. Jigsaw might be smarting a bit this Monday, because he was decidedly trounced by “the little demon that could,” otherwise known as Paranormal Activity.

Based on early estimates from Box Office Mojo,  Paranormal Activity finally claimed the top spot at the box office in its fifth week of release.  This makes it only the second movie this decade to do so after that many weeks in release, the other being Gran Torrino (2008).   Scaring up another $22M, the film played on 1,956 screens and brought its cumulative total up to $62.4M.

Despite playing on over 1,000 more screens than Paranormal, Saw VI brought in only $14.8M for second place.  This is the worst opening weekend for the franchise since the original Saw.

Where the Wild Things Are had a fairly steep dropoff of 55.9% from its opening week, which indicates few repeat attendees, and less than stellar word of mouth.  Still, it made $14.4 bringing its cumulative total to $53.9M for its first two weeks.

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As predicted, Spike Jonze’s Where the Wild Things Are seemingly dominated the Box Office with $32.4M.  It played on a whopping 3,700+ screens, including IMAX screens, for a per-screen average of $8,693.  Sounds decent, but figure in the reported budget of $100M, and it looks like it may be a bit of a climb for the movie to be profitable, at least while in theaters.

The ultra-violent thriller Law Abiding Citizen boasted a very respectable $21.25M, and a $7,353 per screen average, which actually shows it performing very close to WTWTA.  It played in substantially fewer screens (2,890), and if  WTWTA had not had the benefit of IMAX prices, this would have been a much closer race.

The unstoppable juggernaut that is Paranormal Activity continued its trajectory scooping up another $20.1M on only 760 screens!  That puts its per screen average at more than $26,000, nearly three times what WTWTA averaged.  Pretty impressive.  It will expand further next weekend.

Couples Retreat dropped off 47.7%, but still made $17.9M, bringing its total to $63.3M over two weeks.

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Here’s your weekly Box Office report. Studio estimates are from Box Office Mojo. Vince Vaughn and Jon Favreau should be feeling pretty good about themselves this Monday morning.  Their film Couples Retreat received a critical drumming, but still made $35M over the weekend.  The likability of the two stars helped the film overcome negative buzz, and with no new competition, it easily won the weekend.

Zombieland looks like it will be sticking around for a while.  It only dropped 39% from its opening weekend and made$15M, which is impressive for a horror movie. A month after its release, Cloudy With a Chance of Meatballs is still in the top five, and made $12M. Toy Story and Toy Story 2 continue to pull in audiences, dropping just 38% from last week for $7.6.

The real story of the weekend is the phenomenal performance of Paranormal Activity.  The film only played on 160 theaters in the entire country, and made over $7M! To put that in perspective, Surrogates came in at #6 this weekend. It played on 2,992 screens and made $4.1 million for a per screen average of $1,375.  The per screen average for Paranormal Activity was $44, 163. That’s unheard of.

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Overall, it was not a particularly impressive weekend at the box office, with the top films boasting relatively modest numbers. Sony Pictures should be smiling, though, because their studio nabbed the top two spots. According to Box Office Mojo, Zombieland lurched over the competition, raking in an estimated $25 million in its opening weekend.  The horror comedy has already recouped its budget, and will likely be a big success story this year, buoyed by positive reviews and good word of mouth.

Cloudy with a Chance of Meatballs continues to impress and took in another $16.7 million for a cumulative gross of $82 million. The unusual move to release Toy Story and Toy Story 2 in 3D drummed up some impressive interest, netting $12.5 million.  Disney is no doubt salivating over this, because Toy Story 3 is set to be released next summer.

The Invention of Lying from  comedian Ricky Gervais had a unimpressive opening of $7.3 million. Its budget was only $18 million, so it should be profitable anyway. In contrast, last week’s Surrogates also made $7.3 million this weekend. Its cumulative total is only $26.3, nowhere close to its reported $80 million budget.

Capitalism: A Love Story, and Whip It both earned $4.8 million, but Whip It played in almost twice as many theaters. Whip It is probably the biggest surprise of the weekend. It had good reviews, a likable and recognizable cast, and was highly promoted. It had to be a big disappointment to Drew Barrymore, who directed the movie, her first.

Recent holdovers Fame ($4.7), The Informant ($3.8) and Love Happens ($2.7) rounded out the top ten.

For the second week in a row, Cloudy With a Chance of Meatballs garnered the top spot on the weekend box office with around $24 million. The film only dropped about 19% from last week’s total, which is very good by industry standards. Historically, this indicates good word of mouth, and bodes well for staying power at the box office.

Bruce Willis’s sci-fi action romp Surrogates didn’t fare as well as expectations, grossing around $15 million.  With a reported budget of around $80 million, Surrogates looks like it will be a disappointment for Disney’s Touchstone label. In third place was MGM’s remake of Fame.  Seems the likable cast wasn’t enough to get people in the seats this weekend.

Steven Soderbergh’s  The Informant! came in fourth with almost $7 million.  In just two weeks it has almost recouped its $22 million budget, good news for Warner Brothers. Tyler Perry’s I Can Do Bad All By Myself scooped up $4.75 million for fifth place.

The new horror/sci-fi release Pandorum made a dismal $4.4 million.  Maybe the studio should have pre-screened the movie for critics after all.  At least people would have been aware it was out there. The next three in the top ten are all considered disappointments, but if you look at what their total gross is versus their budgets, that is hardly the case.  

Love Happens (weekend gross $4.3 million, total gross $14.7, budget $18 million);  Jennifer’s Body (weekend $3.5 million, total $ 12.3 million, budget $16 million) and 9 (weekend $2.8 million,  total $27 million, budget $30 million) all look like they are going to be profitable, due to their smaller budgets. Inglourious Basterds ($2.7 million) rounded out the top ten.

Until next week, there is your weekend breakdown.

Don’t be so quick to write this movie off as conventional kiddie-fare. Smart, beautiful and prescient, Cloudy With a Chance of Meatballs is bound to become an animated classic. It tackles the timely topic of obesity and our insatiable appetite for consumption with grace and wit. The story is adapted from the children’s book of the same title that was originally published in 1978.

Flint (Bill Hader)  has been an aspiring inventor his entire life. More often than not, his whimsical inventions go awry, irritating the put-upon inhabitants of Swallow Falls. They have plenty to be irritable about, as they subsist mainly on sardines,  the town’s only claim to fame. They understandingly don’t embrace his rat/bird hybrid or other misbegotten inventions. Flint’s father (James Caan), a fisherman, is disgusted that his son doesn’t fall in step and help run his tackle shop. He can’t express himself without using fishing metaphors, and his eyes are hidden behind a bushy unibrow.

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Cult actors have come and gone throughout the years cinema has been around, but one man manages to stay in the spotlight, and the hearts, of fans everywhere. That man is Bruce Campbell. During his career, Campbell has written a series of books, directed, acted, and even done some cologne commercials, but he never seems to really fade away.

We got a chance to talk to Bruce Campbell recently about a series of things including where his character Sam Axe is headed in the current season of Burn Notice, what his thoughts were on Sam Raimi’s Drag Me To Hell, and some info on his newest project, Cloudy with a Chance of Meatballs.

Check out the interview after the jump. You can catch Burn Notice Thursdays on the USA Network.

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