Film with longest reach will win feel-good battle

This weekend's box-office scramble looks like a photo finish between three feel-good comedies targeted at different audiences.

"Juno" is indie. "First Sunday" is urban. And "The Bucket List" is AARP.

With Hollywood executives expecting each movie to rake in about $15 million, the sprint for No. 1 will be determined by which film appeals furthest beyond its core constituency.

Warner Bros.' "The Bucket List" -- starring Jack Nicholson and Morgan Freeman as cancer patients who cut loose with a list of things to do before kicking the proverbial bucket -- has been a crowd pleaser since Christmas at 16 theaters in the New York, Los Angeles and Toronto areas. Today it widens to 2,900 theaters.

The studio was stoked by Thursday's consumer tracking surveys that showed rising interest in the movie not only from aging baby boomers, as expected, but also from 25- to 35-year-olds. Strong ticket sales at suburban theaters from Irvine to the New York area in the first two weeks also bode well for the nationwide expansion.

"If you do big numbers in Orange County and Long Island, there's no reason you shouldn't do the same thing in Denver, St. Louis and Dallas," said Dan Fellman, the studio's president of domestic distribution. "We're pretty psyched."

Critics have dismissed "The Bucket List," a $45-million production directed by Rob Reiner, as schmaltzy and manipulative. But audiences have responded to the film's live-to-the-hilt message -- and to the first screen pairing of two acting icons. Last weekend it pulled in an impressive $20,000 per theater.

By going wide at Christmastime, Universal Pictures got dibs on older audiences with its $75-million budget comedy-drama "Charlie Wilson's War," starring Tom Hanks and Julia Roberts. Though never a smash, "Charlie" has shown sturdy legs at the box office and could end up north of $75 million in U.S. ticket sales.

Warner Bros. took the slower route with "The Bucket List," partly because of the crowded holiday market and also to percolate word of mouth. In exit surveys, audiences have responded far more favorably than reviewers, Fellman said.

Regardless of whether it ranks No. 1 this weekend, the movie could end a long box-office slump for Reiner. Since the 1992 military drama "A Few Good Men," which grossed $141 million domestically, most of his films have sputtered.