“Spectre” had already amassed 73 million dollars in the first weekend, becoming the James Bond movie with the second largest opening since 2012’s “Skyfall”, which had collected 88.4 million dollars in its first weekend.
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However, Spectre had been expected to open with roughly $80 million in the USA, so while the news has been good for the film’s opening, it’s still tainted with a small bit of disappointment. It was a very different scenario. The competition was different, the weekend was different. But Bruer is certain the Bond franchise is still healthy and strong.
“It’s still a great number”, said Paul Dergarabedian, senior media analyst at Rentrak. Between a Olympics partnership that saw James Bond team with (the real) Her Majesty and earn worldwide extra exposure plus the franchise itself celebrating its 50th anniversary (and Adele singing the theme), all of the cards fell into place for Sony. “Bond is still compelling and exciting to audiences”.
The film has been playing internationally for two weeks, breaking records in the UK.
Still Spectre is the second-biggest opening weekend for a Bond film in the USA and Canada.
The 3-D computer animated Peanuts marked a strong return for the beloved comic strip characters, who hadn’t appeared on the big screen since Bon Voyage, Charlie Brown underperformed in 1980. Bond must stop the new “security” measures from going live worldwide – to protect us all, of course. 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. However, it did far better than the $40.8 million opening for Casino Royale in 2006, and the $67.5 million opening for Quantum of Solace in 2008.
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Saoirse Ronan’s 1950s-set immigrant story Brooklyn made $181,000 (£120,200), while Bryan Cranston biopic Trumbo took $77,229 (£51,300). The picture, also from 20th Century Fox, had led the box office four out of the previous five weekends. If both new releases keep up the pace with The Hunger Games: Mockingjay – Part 2 then November should atone for the weak October. “It took Bond and Brown to get the box office back on track”.
