“Sun in Buckets” Italian comedy smashes record in 1st weekend

PanARMENIAN.Net - Sun in Buckets (Sole a catinelle), the latest comedy starring Italian actor and comic Checco Zalone, earned a record $25.1 million in its first weekend, the cinema monitoring company Cinetel reported, surpassing the previous high set by Zalone’s last film nearly three years ago.

According to The Hollywood Reporter, that means Zalone, a 47-year-old standup comic with only three films to his credit, has the two biggest opening weekends on record in Italy, with James Cameron’s fantasy mega-hit Avatar in third.

Sun in Buckets (not an official translation of the film’s title), a father-son vacation comedy directed by Gennaro Nunziante, could be headed for even bigger things: Zalone’s previous film, What a Beautiful Day (Che bella giornata), also directed by Nunziante, went on to pass Roberto Benigni’s 1997 Oscar winner Life is Beautiful (La vita e’ bella) to become the highest grossing Italian film ever based on domestic ticket sales.

Medusa, part of Silvio Berlusconi’s Mediaset, is the distributor for both Sun in Buckets and What a Beautiful Day.

Despite his dramatic success in Italy, Zalone is little known beyond his native country’s borders. What a Beautiful Day, for example, had small festival releases in France and the Philippines and went into wide release outside of Italy only in the Italian-speaking Swiss canton of Ticino.

When What a Beautiful Day surpassed Life is Beautiful’s domestic box office record in January 2011, Zalone apologized to Benigni, noting that Benigni remained much, much better known outside Italy.

“If I am recognized by Hollywood and win three Oscars, then maybe we can say I surpassed him,” Zalone said.

With more than $70 million in worldwide earnings, Life is Beautiful still holds the Italian record for overall sales.