Bucket Fanny

The Bucket List opens tomorrow. Is anybody going to see it? I was walking through the subway yesterday and saw the poster for it and Jack Nicholson's teeth are scary. You can check that out on the official site here. Maybe you want to add The Bucket List's facebook application! Sweet viral marketing.

I actually think The Bucket List will do well this weekend. Why? Two big time stars. There's nothing opening that's going after the same audience (First Sunday, In the Name of the King: A Dungeon Siege Tale, The Pirates Who Don't Do Anything: A Veggietales Movie... longest titles ever?). They could be hurt by parents taking their kids to Veggietales. TBL opens on 2800 screens tomorrow (per Hollywood Reporter) and it killed in its opening weekend (limited release, 16 screens) with a per screen of $20,989. For comparison, I Am Legend did $21,411 in its opening weekend (but on 3000+ screens).

I see The Bucket List taking in about $14-16 million this weekend. I feel like Veggietales will pull in around the same amount but more -- but that's a complete guess. This weekend will be a lot like last weekend with a handful of movies bringing in similar revenue. But after the first week, TBL will not have staying power. You can look at the daily chart and see that it's averages have dropped dramatically in its 3rd week of limited release. This drop will be magnified when it's in 2800 screens and I would be surprised if it made it past 6 weeks. I think the domestic gross will be close the $45 million production budget, making it a profitable movie (don't think it'll crack $60 mn domestically). But you'd expect more out of this duo. Another thing: it's written by a 36 year old writer. That's probably why a handful of reviews called it "manipulative".

It's borderline insane to think this much about The Bucket List in this depth. It's probably because I'm really against this movie. I just think it's going to be crap -- maybe I'll be wrong. However, this is from the same guy who had high expectations for Wild Hogs.... and I enjoyed the hell out of that movie.

UPDATE: Veggietales is only on about 1000 screens, so that prediction will be completely wrong. The Bucket List opens on 2919 screens.