'Bucket List' kicks its way to the top of the box office

By Thomas K. Arnold, Special for USA TODAY
It was a crowded race at the box office this weekend, with no fewer than seven films either opening or expanding in U.S. movie theaters. The big winner: Warner Bros.' The Bucket List, which captured the top spot with a better-than-expected weekend gross of $19.5 million, according to studio estimates.
The film, which had opened the previous week in a limited 16-screen release, stars Jack Nicholson and Morgan Freeman as terminal cancer patients trying to live their last days to the fullest. The film scored high with its mostly older (35 and up) audience, drawn by the chance to see "two of the greatest actors in the world" working together, according to Warner distribution chief Dan Fellman.

Close behind was Sony Pictures' urban crime comedy First Sunday, which captured the No. 2 spot with $19 million. That's far better than projections, which had the film making a little more than $11 million for a fourth-place finish.

Oscar buzz — and an expansion from 1,925 to 2,448 screens — led to a sixth-weekend drop of just 12% for the Fox comedy Juno, which finished third at $14 million. The film's gross of $71.3 million positions it to become the biggest film yet from the studio's boutique Searchlight division, lagging just $200,000 behind Sideways.

Two PG-rated family films, Disney's National Treasure: Book of Secrets and Fox's Alvin and the Chipmunks, finished fourth and fifth with respective grosses of $11.5 million and $9.1 million.

That gives Warner four of the films in the top 10. I Am Legend (No. 6) took in an additional $8.1 million its fifth week on the big screen to bump its total gross to $240.2 million. One Missed Call (No. 7) earned $6.1 million its second week out, while P.S. I Love You (No. 8) in its fourth weekend grossed $5 million.

Universal Studios/Big Idea's The Pirates Who Don't Do Anything, the latest animated VeggieTales movie, earned an estimated $4.4 million for a ninth-place finish, while Focus/Working Title's Atonement capped the top 10 with $4.3 million. The film, frequently mentioned in awards circles, expanded to about 700 locations from 583 runs the previous weekend.

Among the other films frequently cited as awards contenders, There Will Be Blood expanded to 129 screens in the top 25 U.S. and Canadian markets and boasts a per-screen average of more than $15,000, the highest of any film playing. The Kite Runner expanded to 715 screens for a three-day gross of nearly $1.7 million. And No Country for Old Men racked up another $1.3 million on 657 screens to become the highest-grossing Coen Brothers film, with a total of $46.8 million, just passing O Brother, Where Art Thou? ($45.5 million).