--- description: The movie that won at the box office that weekend was the opposite of romantic title: The Notebook Release Date Anniversary: Fahrenheit 9/11 Box Office Win image: https://static.time.com/v3/assets/bltea6093859af6183b/blt481db6765161e49a/6986995a13c79f5320192cfd/177927_full.jpg?branch=production&width=2400&quality=75&auto=webp&crop=16:9 ---  * [Entertainment](/section/entertainment/) ## Entertainment Update your preferences in [Account Settings](/account/preferences/) Close * [movies](/tag/movies/) ## movies Update your preferences in [Account Settings](/account/preferences/) Close # _The Notebook_ Came Out 10 Years Ago — But It's Not What You Were Watching That Weekend  by [Lily Rothman](/author/lily-rothman/)  ## Lily Rothman Update your preferences in [Account Settings](/account/preferences/) Close Rothman is managing editor at TIME. Jun 26, 2014 3:47 PM CUT  THE NOTEBOOK, Rachel McAdams, Ryan Gosling, 2004, (c) New Line THE NOTEBOOK, Rachel McAdams, Ryan Gosling, 2004, (c) New LineNew Line Cinema  by [Lily Rothman](/author/lily-rothman/)  ## Lily Rothman Update your preferences in [Account Settings](/account/preferences/) Close Rothman is managing editor at TIME. Jun 26, 2014 3:47 PM CUT Ten years after _The Notebook_‘s first weekend in theaters, it’s clear that the now-classic weeper won the weekend of June 25–27, 2004\. Even if you [truly hated it](http://time.com/2919712/the-notebook-10th-anniversary/ "undefined"), it’s become a repeat-viewing standby and a cultural touchstone. But on that actual weekend in 2004, _The Notebook_ wasn’t the movie that was driving conversation. The movie that _did_ have viewers talking was, in fact, pretty much the opposite of it. That [weekend](http://boxofficemojo.com/weekend/chart/?yr=2004&wknd=26&p=.htm "undefined"), _Fahrenheit_ _9/11_, the Michael Moore film, became the highest grossing documentary in Hollywood history. With a [reported](http://boxofficemojo.com/movies/?id=fahrenheit911.htm "undefined") production budget of a mere $6 million, it earned $23.9 million. It would eventually earn a domestic total of more than $119 million. _The Notebook_, by contrast, came in fourth that weekend; it earned $13.5 million — about half of its $29 million budget — and went on to gross $81 million domestically. (The other big new movie that weekend was _White Chicks_, which came in second.) Worldwide, _Fahrenheit 9/11_ has made about $222 million, nearly twice the $116 of _Notebook_. Those figures don’t count a gazillion teenage girls mobbing their local Blockbuster locations for rentals of the latter, but they do show that [quotability](http://time.com/2919207/best-notebook-quotes-anniversary/ "undefined") doesn’t necessarily equal box-office success. So there’s a lesson in all this: _Fahrenheit 9/11_ got the money and the talk, but _The Notebook_ is the one that gets the 10th-anniversary excitement. A movie that didn’t make much of a splash can still have a long life; after all, [engagement photo shoots ](http://www.buzzfeed.com/annehelenpetersen/the-very-best-in-notebook-themed-engagement-photos "undefined")inspired by Michael Moore aren’t exactly a trend we see happening any time soon. Or maybe the bigger lesson is vice versa. Take your box-office news with a grain of salt, because today’s big excitement may be like Allie’s memory in _The Notebook_‘s: all too quickly, it fades away. ```json [{"@context":"https://schema.org","@type":"NewsArticle","@id":"https://time.com/2927409/the-notebook-came-out-10-years-ago-but-its-not-what-you-were-watching-that-weekend/","mainEntityOfPage":{"@type":"WebPage","@id":"https://time.com/2927409/the-notebook-came-out-10-years-ago-but-its-not-what-you-were-watching-that-weekend/"},"headline":"The Notebook Came Out 10 Years Ago — But It's Not What You Were Watching That Weekend","datePublished":"2014-06-26T15:47:58.000Z","dateModified":"2026-02-21T08:38:53.737Z","description":"The movie that won at the box office that weekend was the opposite of romantic","url":"https://time.com/2927409/the-notebook-came-out-10-years-ago-but-its-not-what-you-were-watching-that-weekend/","keywords":["movies","Box-office","anniversary","Ryan Gosling"],"thumbnailUrl":"https://static.time.com/v3/assets/bltea6093859af6183b/blt481db6765161e49a/6986995a13c79f5320192cfd/177927_full.jpg?branch=production&width=1200&quality=75&auto=webp&crop=1200:675&height=675","author":[{"@type":"Person","name":"Lily Rothman","jobTitle":"Rothman is managing editor at TIME.","url":"https://time.com/author/lily-rothman/"}],"articleSection":"Entertainment","image":[{"@type":"ImageObject","url":"https://static.time.com/v3/assets/bltea6093859af6183b/blt481db6765161e49a/6986995a13c79f5320192cfd/177927_full.jpg?branch=production&width=1200&quality=75&auto=webp&crop=1200:675&height=675","width":1200,"height":675,"headline":"MCDNOTE EC016","caption":"MCDNOTE EC016","creditText":"New Line Cinema","representativeOfPage":true}],"publisher":{"@type":"Organization","name":"Time","url":"https://time.com/","logo":{"@type":"ImageObject","url":"https://time.com/images/logo.png","width":528,"height":156},"foundingDate":"March 3, 1923","sameAs":["https://www.facebook.com/time","https://www.instagram.com/time/?hl=en","https://twitter.com/time","https://www.pinterest.com/timemagazine"]}},{"@context":"https://schema.org","@type":"BreadcrumbList","itemListElement":[{"@type":"ListItem","position":1,"item":{"@id":"/section/entertainment/","name":"Entertainment"}},{"@type":"ListItem","position":2,"item":{"@id":"/tag/movies/","name":"movies"}},{"@type":"ListItem","position":3,"item":{"@id":"https://time.com/2927409/the-notebook-came-out-10-years-ago-but-its-not-what-you-were-watching-that-weekend/","name":"The Notebook Came Out 10 Years Ago — But It's Not What You Were Watching That Weekend"}}]}] ```