To see Bond shoot flames from his fancy auto at the competition in the full chart listings, take online aim at Box Office Mojo.
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The James Bond franchise saw its second-highest opening ever this weekend with “Spectre”, pulling in $73 million to dominate the box office.
Josh Greenstein, Sony’s president of worldwide marketing and distribution, said that they were happy with the domestic opening, but that they were thrilled by the foreign box office.
“That’s all I’ve ever tried to do with these films… just make the movies as memorable as possible”, he added, “Should I make another one or not make another one, I’m proud of the four I’ve made”. Only “Skyfall”, with its $88.4 million debut three years ago, started better, according to Rentrak’s Paul Dergarabedian. It has a lot of ground to make up to recoup its $100 million budget, but family films tend to be more dependable performers when it comes to a film maintaining its momentum. “We were everywhere. That’s what we thought we had to do to get through the noise of Bond to connect with moviegoers from eight to 80 years old, which I think we really were successful in doing”. Bond must stop the new “security” measures from going live worldwide – to protect us all, of course. Rounding out the top five was Tom Hanks’s “Bridge of Spies”, which grossed approximately $6.1 million for a domestic total of $55 million. Adjusting for ticket price inflation, two of the earliest Bond films – 1964’s Goldfinger and 1965’s Thunderball, both starring Sean Connery – are among the highest grossing films of all time domestically, with $552.9 million and $623.8 million respectively. Unlike the similar “Truth”, which bombed, “Spotlight” reeled in audiences to the five locations showing it. With an impressive $60,455 per-screen average, it opened to $302,276. In the meantime, Trumbo, starring Bryan Cranston because the blacklisted Hollywood screenwriter, opened to $seventy seven, 229 with a mean of $15,445. The final installment of “The Hunger Games” franchise opens in two weeks, and “Star Wars: The Force Awakens” bows in just over a month. It seems as though Bond has lost his way and never quite gets his spark back.
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Spectre expanded into an additional 72 territories, debuting in first place in all of the markets and pushing its global haul to $300 million and counting, with 40% of worldwide markets still to come, including France, Australia, South Korea, Japan and China.
