Spectre and The Peanuts Movie both had huge openings this weekend. It placed #1 everywhere. That’s because Daniel Craig’s latest outing couldn’t beat predecessor Skyfall, which raked in $88 million during its weekend debut.
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If “Spectre” wants to topple “Skyfall” as the highest-grossing James Bond film in history, it will need to do massive business overseas.
The Peanuts Movie faced a different challenge, as it needed to establish itself with a fresh young generation who may never have read the cartoons (though the endless annual repeats of the holiday specials on TV probably help). Sam Mendes, who directed Skyfall and Spectre, has already confirmed that this is his last Bond film, will Craig follow? Sony’s deal to distribute the Bond films expires with Spectre, and though the studio is expected to make a bid to keep the series, other suitors, such as Warner Bros. and Paramount, will aggressively pursue the rights to the franchise. “On every continent, including Latin America, Asia and Europe it is breaking Skyfall records”.
Though critics were less enthusiastic, audiences polled by CinemaScore on average gave “Spectre” an A-minus grade. Internationally, it has grossed $223.1 million so far, and it has done better than Skyfall has in many worldwide markets.
The Peanuts Movie, costing just under $100-M to produce, coincides with the 65th anni of the comic strip and the 50th anni of its classic TV special, A Charlie Brown Christmas. “We were everywhere. That’s what we thought we had to do to get through the noise of Bond to connect with moviegoers from 8 to 80, which I think we really were successful in doing”. Spectre drew a rating of 63 out of 100 “tomatoes” at RottenTomatoes, a review aggregator owned by Flixster.
Families turned out in force (70%), while the audience skewed female (55%). Of that total, 007, Charlie Brown, Snoopy and the gang accounted for 76% as November 2015 is off to a good start. Its domestic total is now at $197.1 million, surpassing Mission: Impossible – Rogue Nation to become the seventh biggest movie of the year.
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Despite the healthy openings for two new films, a few previously released films held on with brisk ticket sales domestically, including “The Martian”, “Goosebumps” and “Bridge of Spies”. Here’s the week’s box office roundup. They included Spotlight, about the Boston Globe’s Pulitzer Prize-winning investigation into the sex abuse scandal in the Catholic Church, which took $302,276 (£200,700).
