Zackham coined the expression "bucket list" after he wrote his own "List of Things to do Before I Kick the Bucket" and shortened it to "Justin's Bucket List". The first item on his list was to "get a film made at a major studio". This list gave him the idea for the screenplay, and The Bucket List became his first studio film.[3]
The film premiered on December 15, 2007, in Hollywood and opened in limited release in the United States on December 25, 2007, by Warner Bros. The film then had a wide release on January 11, 2008. Despite receiving mixed reviews from critics, the film was chosen by National Board of Review as one of the top ten films of 2007 and was a box office success, opening at #1 in the United States, and grossing $175.4 million worldwide.
Plot
Two elderly men, blue-collar automotive mechanic Carter Chambers and billionaire Edward Cole, meet for the first time in a hospital owned by Edward after both men are diagnosed with terminal lung cancer.
Carter, a gifted amateur historian and family man, wanted to become a history professor in his youth but chose to start a family instead. Edward, a four-time divorced healthcare tycoon and cultured loner, enjoys drinking kopi luwak, one of the most expensive coffees in the world and mocking his personal valet Matthew, whom he wrongly but intentionally calls Thomas.
While in the hospital, Carter and Edward manage to find common ground. For fun, Carter started writing a list of activities to do before he "kicks the bucket." After hearing he has less than a year to live, he dejectedly discards his list.
Atop the Great Pyramid of Giza, they confide mutually about faith and family. Carter reveals that he has long been feeling less in love with his wife and feels some regret for his chosen path. Edward discloses that he is deeply hurt by his estrangement from his only daughter, who estranged him after he drove away her abusive husband. Later, while in Hong Kong, Edward hires a prostitute to approach Carter, who has never been with any woman but his wife. Carter declines and insists they stop the bucket list and go home.
During the return journey, Carter tries to reunite Edward with his estranged daughter. Considering this a breach of trust, Edward scolds Carter and then angrily storms off. Carter returns home to his family while Edward, feeling alone, breaks down weeping in his luxury home. Carter’s family reunion turns out to be short-lived as while readying for marital romance, he collapses and is rushed to the hospital, where it is discovered that the cancer has spread to his brain. Edward, now in a remarkable remission, visits him to reconcile.
Carter, always a Jeopardy! fan knowledgeable about trivia, reveals how Edward's kopi luwak coffee is fed to and defecated by a jungle cat before being harvested. As the two laugh hysterically over the obscure fact, Carter implores Edward to finish the list for him.
After Carter dies during surgery, Edward manages to reconcile with his own daughter and she introduces him to the granddaughter he never knew he had. After greeting the little girl by kissing her cheek, Edward thoughtfully crosses "kiss the most beautiful girl in the world" off the bucket list. Soon after, Edward delivers a eulogy at Carter’s funeral, during which he explains that the last three months of Carter's life were, thanks to Carter, the best three months of his own.
An epilogue reveals that Edward lived to age 81 and Matthew then took his ashes to a peak in the Himalayas. As Matthew places a Chock full o'Nuts coffee can of Edward's ashes alongside another can of Carter's ashes, he crosses off the last item on the bucket list, "witness something truly majestic", and tucks the completed list between the cans. A voice-over from Carter says that he thought Edward would have gotten a laugh out of being buried on a mountain as it is apparently against the law.
The film opened in wide release in the United States and Canada on January 11, 2008 and grossed $19,392,416 from around 3,200 screens across 2,911 theaters, averaging $6,662 per theater ($6,060 per screen) and ranking #1 at the box office.[4] The film closed on June 5, 2008, never having a weekend-to-weekend decline of more than 40%, and ended up with a final gross of $93,466,502 in the United States and Canada and another $81,906,000 overseas, for a total gross of $175,372,502 worldwide, easily recouping the film's considerable $45 million budget and turning a sizable profit for Warner Bros.[1]
Reception
The Bucket List received mixed reviews from critics. On Rotten Tomatoes, the film has a rating of 41% based on 178 reviews, with an average rating of 5.20/10. The site's critical consensus reads, "Not even the earnest performances of the two leads can rescue The Bucket List from its schmaltzy script".[5]Metacritic gave the film a score of 42 out of 100, based on 34 critics, indicating "mixed or average reviews".[6] Audiences polled by CinemaScore gave the film an average grade of "A−" on an A+ to F scale.[7]
On IMDb the movie has a more favorable score of 7.4/10.[8]
Chicago Sun-Times film critic Roger Ebert, who was diagnosed with thyroid cancer in 2002 and whose lower jaw was removed in 2006, criticized the film's portrayal of cancer sufferers, writing in his one-star review that The Bucket List "...thinks dying of cancer is a laff riot followed by a dime-store epiphany."[9]
It also features a rearranged version of the James Bond theme "Goldfinger" (titled "Printmaster"), with Shaiman's own voice and lyrics in which he spoofs the industry's habit of tracking music in scenes where they do not belong.
^Joshua Rich (2008-01-14). "Bucket List tops box office". Entertainment Weekly. it received a nice A- CinemaScore review from an audience that was 59 percent female and a whopping 84 percent over the age of 25.
^Reiner, Rob (2008-01-11), The Bucket List (Adventure, Comedy, Drama), Jack Nicholson, Morgan Freeman, Sean Hayes, Warner Bros., Zadan / Meron Productions, Two Ton Films, retrieved 2024-01-01
