Checco Zalone set to break Italian box office records once again with his new film "Sole a Catinelle (Buckets of Sun)"

Checco Zalone's Italian box office records. His debut film Cado Dalle Nubi (Falling from the Clouds), 15 million euro. His second feature Che Bella Giornata (What a Beautiful Day), 45 million.

In fact, the success of Che Bella Giornata was particularly impressive. On the first day, it made 2.62 million euro, the third best box office returns in Italian history just behind  Spider-Man 3  and Harry Potter and the Half Blooded Prince. By the second day it had made 6.64 million. After three weeks it claimed the highest grossing Italian film in Italian box office history beating Roberto Benigni's three time academy award winning La Vita é Bella (Life is Beautiful) (1997) and by the end of its run it had claimed over 43 million, beating the Italian box office record that had been held by Titanic since 1997.

Checco Zalone is a comedian who burst into the Italian national scene on a popular TV show called Zelig. His main act included poking fun at famous Italian singers and taking advantage of a traditional comedic representation of the typical Italian man from the South. He has also recorded comedy music albums and one of his songs Siamo una Squadra Fortissimi (We Are a Very Strong Team) became associated with Italy#s victory at the 2006 World Cup - this has been identified as the main reason for his success. Now, with his new film Sole a Catinelle (Buckets of Sun), the first figures are already hair-raising. More than 1200 copies and already around 30000 tickets booked for the screening of the film that was released last night.

The film is about a vacuum cleaner vendor (Checco Zalone) who promises his son a dream summer holiday if he gets an A in every subject on his report card. Whe his son returns with the perfect report card, Zalone is forced to keep his promise and, despite being stone broke, the two set off on their dream holiday.

Critics have once again rushed to dismiss the quality of Zalone's latest, also claiming that it is too reminescent of Thursday (1963) by Dino Risi. And although none of his recent films will surely be exported or subtitled in any other major country in the world, Zalone is set to break more box office records at home.