Mmmmm, No. 1 movie

By Scott Bowles, USA TODAY

Mmmmm, No. 1 movie.

The Simpsons Movie, a film that has been in production for more than four years and on the minds of fans much longer, raked in $71.9 million over the weekend, according to studio estimates from box-office trackers Nielsen EDI.

CHART: Top 10 weekend films

REVIEW: Timely, good fun

The debut was $20 million more than the most optimistic projections — and was validation for writers who were panic-stricken about alienating the show's rabid fans. The script went through 158 drafts.

"Most mornings I've been alternating between waking up confident and waking up drenched in flop sweat," Simpsons director David Silverman said before the opening. "When a show has been around 18 years, it's hard to overestimate how high expectations are."

And at least this weekend, the film met them. The Simpsons enjoyed the third-largest debut for an animated film, behind this year's Shrek the Third, which bowed to $121.6 million, and Shrek 2, which opened at $108 million in 2004.

Of course, those films weren't based on the longest-running animated show in television history. And The Simpsons, say executives at 20th Century Fox, depended on strong reviews.
"Obviously people love the show," says Fox's Chris Aronson. "But not as many people watch it as they used to. (Ratings have dipped from about 20 million viewers a week in the mid-1990s to 9 million now.) We needed good reviews. People needed to know there was something worth bringing them back for."

The film got the reviews, earning recommendations from more than 80% of the nation's critics, according to Rotten Tomatoes.com.

The movie also benefited from a marketing campaign in which 7-Eleven stores were turned into Kwik-E-Marts and sold Squishees and Homer's pink-frosted doughnuts. "Any time you can get audiences to literally consume your marketing, you're doing an amazing job selling your film," says Paul Dergarabedian of Media By Numbers.

The film was an easy winner over I Now Pronounce You Chuck and Larry, which fell 44% from its debut with $19.1 million. Harry Potter and the Order of the Phoenix was third with $17.1 million, followed by Hairspray ($15.5 million), and the Catherine Zeta-Jones comedy No Reservations ($11.8 million).

Among other newcomers, the Lindsay Lohan thriller I Know Who Killed Me mustered only $3.4 million for No. 9, while Who's Your Caddy was 10th with $2.9 million. Final figures are due today.