The Bucket List Takes Box Office
January 14, 2008

It took the combined star power of Jack Nicholson and Morgan Freeman to wrestle the box office crown away from Nicolas Cage and National Treasure: Book of Secrets, but that's exactly what happened this weekend when Rob Reiner's The Bucket List proved to be a very strong financial asset for Warner Brothers. According to studio estimates published by Box Office Mojo, The Bucket List landed $19.5 million, for a total of $21 million, as the film was playing in limited release the last couple of weeks. When final numbers come in though, we could have an upset as Screen Gems is estimating First Sunday, the Ice Cube and Tracy Morgan comedy, at a hefty $19 million with a weekend-best $8,585 per screen. If Screen Gems is a little low and Warner Brothers a little high, Jack Nicholson and Morgan Freeman may not have that box office crown long.

One of the big box office stories of the season continues to be the massive success of Juno, a film that will become the biggest hit in the history of Fox Searchlight this week, passing best picture nominee Sideways for that title. Juno fell only 12%, taking in another $14 million and grossing $71.3 million to date. Juno may not have won a Golden Globe on Sunday night, but plenty of people were out seeing the excellent flick.

There were a pair of other new releases, neither of which made any sort of dent in the box office. Universal's animated The Pirates Who Don't Do Anything lived up to its title and could only earn $4.4 million, but that was good enough for 9th place. Not even cracking the top ten was Uwe Boll's In the Name of the King: A Dungeon Siege Tale, which barely broke the $2k per screen mark for a dismal $3.3 million opening weekend.

The rest of the top ten were filled out by National Treasure: Book of Secrets ($11.5 million and $187.3 million to date), Alvin and the Chipmunks ($9.1 million; 187.7 million), I Am Legend ($8.1 million; $240.2 million), One Missed Call ($6.1 million; $20.6 million), P.S. I Love You ($5 million; $47 million), and last night's big winner, Atonement ($4.3 million; $25.2 million).

This weekend sees the release of the highly anticipated Cloverfield on 3,100 screens with Fox counterprogramming the romantic comedy 27 Dresses on 3,000 screens. Also hoping to make a dent is Mad Money on 2,200 screens.