At some point over the next week or two, "Quo vado?," a nostalgic comedy starring Italian comedian Checco Zalone, will become the most successful film Italy has ever made.

The film, which stars Zalone as an unambitious civil servant who seems to take pride only in his ability to quickly pound documents with a rubber stamp, is on pace to surpass the U.S. 2009 science fiction blockbuster "Avatar," which earned 65 million euros (70.66 million U.S. dollars) in Italy.

Since its January 1 opening, "Quo vado?" has earned a little more than 60 million euros.

Perhaps more intriguingly, "Quo vado?" -- the name is Latin for "Where Am I Going," a play on the Latin phrase "Quo vadis?" ("Where are you going?") -- already set the record for the biggest box office total for an Italian-made film, surpassing the 2013 comedy "Sole a catinelle" ("Sun in Buckets"), Zalone's previous film. And "Sole a catinelle" broke the record previously held by "Che bella giornata" ("What a Beautiful Day"), a 2011 comedy that, not surprisingly, also starred Zalone.

That means that in Italy, a country that has won more Oscars than any country besides the United States thanks to iconic cinema maestros like Federico Fellini, Roberto Rossellini, Vittorio De Sica, and Luchino Visconti, the top three domestic films ever made -- at least in box office terms -- come from the unlikely team of Zalone along with writer and director Gennaro Nunziante and producer Pietro Valsecchi.

According to Italian journalist and commentator Beppe Severgnini, the themes Zalone selects resonate with the Italian public: in "Quo vado?" Zalone's character is holding on to the age-old Italian desire to stay with an adequate job for life, something seen with nostalgia by many because it is under threat by globalization.

"When [films] strike it big, it means they've tapped into something in the national psyche," Severgnini wrote.

Similarly, "Sole a catinelle" is about a cash-strapped Italian father who tries to put together a dream vacation for his young son without spending any money. "Che bella giornata," meanwhile, is about a bumbling want-to-be policeman working as a security guard who inadvertently gets manipulated by a group of wrongdoers.

"It's very difficult to know exactly why Zalone's films have become so popular," Lionello Cerri, president of Italy's national cinema association, told Xinhua. "He's a very funny artist, a comic who is easy to like, and he avoids overexposure. What I mean is he doesn't do much in public between films, so the interest builds up."

Cerri went on: "But there's also something intangible that is very difficult to identify," he said.

"Quo vado?" is still going strong, and if Zalone's timing holds, it will be late in 2017 at the earliest before Italy finds out if he, Nunziante, and Valsecchi can stretch their run of smash hit comedies to four films. But it would be hard to bet against them.

What does Zalone think of the fact that Italy's all-time box office champion is not a critically celebrated actor like Marcello Mastroianni or Vittorio Gassman, or one of the legendary directors mentioned previously? Asked that question in an interview after the success of his previous film, Zalone had a perfect answer:

"All I can say is that it's fortunate they're all dead," Zalone deadpanned. "Otherwise, they'd be furious." Endit

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