I don't know that anyone's rooting against NTTD, or even if they are, that there's anything wrong with that. They're certainly entitled to their opinions, which are no less valid than anyone else's. But I do think there's a reality tied to facts, and whether that reality is based on COVID-19, a perception of the film's quality or content, sea changes in theater-going behavior in general, or some other source explanation or combination, NTTD is not on track to do better box office than Spectre, which did less box office than Skyfall.
Rotten Tomatoes and other aggregators is no better or worse a barometer of how well a film is going to do financially than anything else. It's about what critics have said and only those users willing to post or share their opinions -- those tend to be a subset of fans in general rather than a true measure of the movie-going public.
All that said, I would take no pleasure in NTTD failing at the box office nor any celebration if it broke records. I find it a middle film, good at the beginning, uneven for the rest, and -- as others have said -- not emotionally earning its ending. It's understandably been compared to OHMSS, a film which does a far better job of integrating all its parts and driving things home dramatically and thematically. But then that's because the film follows the novel well. To me, NTTD owes a lot of its effect to people making the comparison to OHMSS rather than earning it on its own. But that's just my opinion, no better or worse than anyone else's. I will say, though, it's not a film I would pay to see multiple times in the theater as a result.
I thought we were agreeing, haha -- you said you doubted people were actively rooting against NTTD, and I added to that I don't know they were, either. I do think there can be flare ups over disagreeing opinions -- there's a tendency on "fan" sites to assume everything must be upbeat and positive, which is unrealistic. But disagreements here seen to have been mild.
My point about Rotten Tomatoes is it doesn't predict financial success as well as critical ones (within limitations), but you were making the point only about how it doesn't seem like many people are hating the downbeat ending. I do think Rotten Tomatoes is limited in terms of gauging actual audience reaction because it relies on people to actively submit their responses.
But -- and I should have been more clear about this -- I do think the sentimentality of NTTD has as much to do with people's familiarity with OHMSS as anything NTTD as a movie actually does. Keep in mind that the most likely person to rush out and see it (especially during a pandemic) in the first week or two is a hardcore fan of the franchise. More general audiences will attend, too, of course, but they're less likely to be the ones there on opening weekend. So any audience buzz we're getting now is more likely to be a fan base rather than a more general audience.
A lot of good points being made here. I think the takeaway for me is that they need to decide what these films should be. This overly emotional stuff (unearned, as Gassy Man and others point out) doesn’t sell tickets to the core audience for Bond. Bind films pre-Craig were reliably escapist fun. Fleming’s books, while totally different in tone to the films, were escapist fun. Half of NTTD (the good half) was escapist fun. See the pattern??
U.S. numbers continuing to fall for NTTD from an off-start to begin with:
"Heading for the runner-up slot is the sophomore outing of MGM and Eon Productions’ “No Time to Die.” The latest James Bond entry took in $7.2 million on Friday, on its way to an estimated second weekend total of $24.16 million. The 56% drop from the film’s somewhat modest opening of $56 million is roughly in-line with that of previous franchise entries “Skyfall” and “Spectre.”
So far I have managed to see the film once. I would like to see it again, but the three hour runtime and the limited theater hours of operation on weekdays in my area has made that almost impossible. With Covid I don't want to deal with the weekend crowds. I may just have to wait until its out on dvd.
Straight comparisons of NTTD v Skyfall or Spectre seem to be adjusting, or not, for inflation and making performance or popularity based conclusions whilst not really mentioning the fact that neither film had a headwind of a global pandemic that at its peak closed every cinema in multiple jurisdictions for months, the behavioural effects of which have are far from receding, particularly in some natural Bond demographics. Equally Netflix only launched, for example, streaming in the UK and Ireland in 2012 so when Skyfall came out the number of people choosing to wait to view at home or on a streaming service was zero. Between 2012 and 2019 North American total cinema tickets sold fell by just over 140million tickets (not actually as stark as you might imagine) from 1.381 to 1.239 billion (US definition)... in 2020 for example it cratered down to 223m total.
These factors can't really be ignored. So I just wondered what makeweight or Pandemic allowance you would make for NTTD when comparing to Skyfall or Spectre. Do you double all NTTD figures? x0.25? This is a serious point, for clarity.
As you have said this "But I do think there's a reality tied to facts, and whether that reality is based on COVID-19, a perception of the film's quality or content, sea changes in theater-going behavior in general, or some other source explanation or combination, NTTD is not on track to do better box office than Spectre, which did less box office than Skyfall." but then don't seem to have actually applied any weighting to those facts whilst using it to draw quality/popularity of film conclusions. I should add, more evenhandedly than many across the forum.
But those factors don’t change the tallies, only the explanation for them. If people don’t buy the tickets because of the pandemic or because it’s a full moon, they still don’t buy the tickets. The comparisons to previous films is not to argue for cause and effect but merely the potential box office earnings and how profitability is determined by them. The trends of the past show us patterns.
It may well be possible that NTTD will earn money in streaming or other means, but that remains to be seen. There is no way to determine that and therefore no makeweight to attach. All that we have right now is box office.
Another view on the money situation, from a week ago and more or less echoing what we're hearing elsewhere about ticket sales while also giving some insight to the distribution of those with the theater chains, foreign and domestic:
"But does that mean No Time to Die will end up profitable? Probably not, actually. At least not during its theatrical window. I spent some time this week talking to film finance and exhibition experts about the challenges these days of pushing super-expensive tentpoles into the black. It wasn’t easy before, but now? Even in a best-case scenario, No Time to Die likely won’t get there. Let’s do some quick math."
No Time to Die box office looks to be slipping further, but as the article points out, business across the board is down 20% over this time in 2019:
"“No Time to Die” continues to be good but not great. The 56 percent second-weekend drop is slightly more than “Spectre” or “Skyfall.” At $99.5 million domestic, it lags the 10-day totals for “Spectre” ($129 million) and “Skyfall” ($161 million). It faces “Dune” next week with some overlap in audience. Unlike the previous two Bonds, it won’t get a boost from Thanksgiving play in its fourth week.
Worldwide total is now $447 million ($53 million additional this weekend in foreign territories), with China and Australia ahead. It has a chance of reaching “F9” ($716 million) worldwide as the top grossing non-Chinese production this year. But it will fall short of “Spectre” ($880 million) and “Skyfall” ($1.1 billion). Its producers face a difficult task in the post-Craig era to create a formula that can justify the massive production and marketing costs that Bond films demand."
NTTD is probably going to end up being the highest or second-highest grossing English language film of the year. That includes several Marvel films, not all of which had same day streaming. If that’s not an endorsement of the franchise and it’s commercial viability, I don’t know what is? Did anyone honestly expect Skyfall or even Spectre numbers? That’s an unrealistic bar in the present climate. NTTD passed the test.
It's not about passing a test. It's merely a thread about how NTTD is doing at the box office, including facing challenges. How well it does, regardless of the reasons why, also will impact what happens next with the franchise, one way or the other.
Perhaps. If the MGM—Amazon merger goes through, I doubt it matters much. EON, or it’s successor, will have significant resources at their disposal, and won’t have to worry about bringing in third parties to distribute. If anything, we’ll get more content, not less. That’s not necessarily a good thing, but I can’t see Amazon sitting around for another 5 years waiting for the Bond producers to do something.
Well, I don't think it's that simple. The Bond movies are tentpoles, and if they aren't profitable, it has implications across the board for whichever studio owns them. A Bond film that isn't profitable (or highly profitable) at the box office may have at least two immediate impacts: 1) A significantly reduced budget for the next Bond film, assuming one is made, and 2) A shift by a studio to cheaper films that may have higher profitability (e.g, rom coms or horror movies), delaying production on another Bond film. A studio may even try to sell off the Bond property, especially if they're debt saddled.
But there's a bigger implication, especially with Bond and streaming services. Driven purely to make money and with a conservative fear that a big budget Bond movie in theaters may not bring in the cash, a streaming service may try to parse out Bond as property. Then we have Bond cartoons, a teen James Bond in his first adventures, a Moneypenny and a Q series, and so forth. On the surface, this may seem like a great renaissance for Bond, but what it also may portend is both an oversaturation of Bond and a dilution of the style and creativity that goes into making a Bond film exclusively every few years.
A reduced budget for a Bond movie is not necessarily a bad thing and makes sense if they're going to introduce a new actor, who is an unknown. I'm not sure the rest would be good for Bond, though.
I agree that none of that, apart from a reduced budget, sounds good. But the movie won’t fail to make a profit because it’s not performing at the box office. Rather, it’s because of the unprecedented delays, which were a result of once-in-a-century events. And Amazon is not a debt-saddled studio that will be looking to sell Bond off. Frankly, they’ve already over-paid for it.
Now, if the Amazon sale doesn’t go through, then that’s a different kettle of fish.
I think it'll make a profit, but not as big a one as its immediate predecessors, and it will take time. Given the ending and pandemic, I'm not sure it has the same repeat business.
But the delays in both making and releasing it just protract the problem, especially if they incurred debt that has to be paid.
One potential upside is if this film doesn't do well, it might actually create impetus for the producers to court Craig back for one more. I'm still not convinced the ending is as final as everyone believes it is. When I watched it a second time, I noticed as the final explosion appears to engulf Bond, the screen goes completely white. I honestly think there's wiggle room in there to pull a fast one. There's actually precedent for it in the movie -- when Bond shoots Saffin's men in the space of hardly a few moments, he turns to shoot Saffin who has already disappeared while a trap door closes. I don't think it's impossible for the writers to come up with a way for Bond to survive.
Do I think that will happen? I doubt it very much. And if they found a way to bring Craig back, it would probably be both overcomplicated and underwhelming. But something to keep in mind is that as Craig's Bond movies have unfolded, they've become increasingly more fantastic.
Sure, I get the intent, but it's being used here and elsewhere to draw qualitative conclusions which are contrary to that - and box office is not a monopole beast.
For example NTTD is now outperforming Spectre for week three figures in the UK and Ireland and even outperformed Skyfall in the domestic US weekend-to-cume figures (opening weekend v tail) albeit with lower raw numbers, interestingly, to your post, it's not clear if that is repeat viewings or people who wanted to avoid crowds: a behavioural change pattern dictated by the pandemic.
Whilst I understand the assertions and traditional implications I'm not sure performance impact on franchises can be viewed in the usual way, as no studio is thinking in the same terms due to the pandemic. Frankly compared to where they were 9 months ago every single penny taken in a theatre has the same impact as pure profit for studios and that will factor into how they view it in relation to your concerns.
When considering the costs of a Bond film you have to factor in $100 million + paid by product placement that went toward production costs. The production cost with additional interest expenses due to delays is reportedly a bit over $200 million and advertising and marketing is reportedly $150 million with Heineken and various sub-distributors contributing to defray those expenses.
Break even is probably somewhere around $400-450 million, assuming the producers get 60% of the domestic box office and 40% of foreign box office, not counting China, where the producer's cut is about 20%.
That would be bad news for EON. My understanding of the current deal between MGM and EON is that in exchange for financing the films, MGM gets 100% of the DVD sales, streaming, etc., while the box office net of exhibitors share is split 50-50.
I'm one of those who didn't particularly like NTTD. @Gassy Man 's description: "I find it a middle film, good at the beginning, uneven for the rest, and -- as others have said -- not emotionally earning its ending" is pretty much where I am. Bond films are the only films I have ever seen at the cinema more than once (excluding festival or review showings of classics like "Lawrence of Arabia" etc). I saw Spectre four times (in three different formats/environments), Skyfall three times, etc., but I won't be going to see NTTD again. I am very much looking forward to seeing the beginning again. I loved Jamaica, loved Matera, and loved Paloma, but despite loving those bits, it's not enough for me to go and see the whole thing again.
Not for a moment would I suggest that I believe 'most' or even 'many' Bond fans feel the same way as I do. This is just me. I saw my first Bond film in the cinema at age 7, read my first Fleming book at age 11, and have been hooked since, but this one just doesn't do it for me. Maybe it's because of the world around me - Globally and personally - that I just didn't need this storyline at this time and found it to be turn-off.
However, I want NTTD to do well at the box office because if it doesn't, that could bode badly for the future of Bond and I have been disappointed and troubled by the lack of buzz or even interest amongst some family and friends. Although a poor showing won't scupper Bond, it could well affect future budgets or the approach to future films. Unlikely if Amazon is the winner, but potentially a little troubling if they're not.
Our backgrounds with Bond sound similar @The Domino Effect, and after that first hour, I don't feel like I need to watch much more until the last 20 minutes. And those last 20 minutes don't feel like they're earned by what precedes them -- the end just happens. I agree, though, that if this film doesn't do well enough, it will be a while before we see another Bond film and in a different form. The problem is there will be a lot of casting about to lay blame -- the pandemic, the changing audience viewing habits, the "big fantasy epic" not being what Bond fans want anymore, etc., as opposed to the reality that about third of No Time to Die is a good film and the rest not so much.
Just not sure how they'd explain the scene with the smartblood showing his vitals zeroed out. I suppose they could explain it away by saying the blasts somehow interfered with the system or that he flatlined similar to in Casino Royale. Highly unlikely however.
It's been a week since I've watched and that excitement I had for this movie to be released has turned into just a sinking feeling. Looking for anything at all Bond related to put a brighter perspective on things and I'm not finding it. This ending changes the way I'll view Craig's others as well. All of the sorrow and pain he goes through for 4 films culminates in his eventual death. It will be difficult to view his earlier movies through any other lense.
Hopefully we get a new Bond announced soon and something to be excited about. Because right now, I for one have never had a lower mood involving the franchise.
I think it's highly unlikely they will bring Craig back.
But let's look at it from a writing point of view (which admittedly might not satisfy some audiences, but then the current end does not either).
We know M is considerably more duplicitous than he was presented in either Skyfall or Spectre. In fact, he's basically retconned into a different character. In the former, he merely looked the other way while Q and Tanner were tracking Bond, suggesting they further misled Silva with "breadcrumbs." In Spectre, M openly fights against Nine Eyes and the implications it has for freedom and democracy -- but here endorses a shadow mode of assassination that has the horrific implications to wipe out entire family lines and races of people. And apparently has no concern for safety protocols and the like. And orders the British Navy to attack an island that is neither in British waters or under British authority.
So, anything's on the table now. For all we know, M may have ordered Q to fake Bond's death on the monitor as part of some bigger, unspecified plan. Or perhaps Q becomes involved in a larger scenario without his knowledge. It's interesting that we A) Don't know exactly what Q injected in Bond, other than what Q says or thinks it is, B) Q is so adamant that there is no cure for nanobots, C) that an EMP watch has no effect on nanobots, D) the screen goes white as the final "explosion" occurs. Maybe the EMP did disable the nanobots. Maybe Bond was injected with something more than smart blood. Maybe some of the bombs were not high explosive at all but merely appeared so. Maybe all this is part of some labyrinthine plan to fake Bond's death, a la the movie You Only Live Twice.
What has become clear is that as Craig's Bonds have continued, they've become more fantastic in their plotting. It would be a stretch no matter how the writers try to explain how Bond survives, but it's not impossible, certainly not in fiction and certainly not given the Bonds have slowly moved back into traditional territory, if only dipping their toe. But I think they purposefully left a bit of wiggle room there.
Bond's wristwatch disabled the electronics in Cyclops's eye but didn't damage the electronics in Bond's ear-piece which was basically the same distance away, so anything is possible 😉.
Since there are so many nods to previous Bond films - OHMSS and YOLT in particular - it does make complete sense for Bond to have survived. Far-fetched, yes, but then many things in Bond-dom are far-fetched even in the grittier world of DC. That said, I fear they've made the DC5 a self-contained unit and moving forward there will be no return of these specific M, Q, and MPs (we'll get new, fresh, unsullied M,Q, and MPs), and we'll just pick-up in some parallel universe and start a new Bond thread-line.
Yeah, that's a great point. To me, there's a lot of slop in No Time to Die, both in terms of the drama and the details. I felt the same with Skyfall, but they poured on the sentimentality, so a lot of audiences looked the other way. This one tries to do similarly, but the middle sags, to the degree that I wasn't caught up enough in the strangely flat domestic stuff to not pay as much attention in the climax.
I am intrigued by the points you made! It would certainly be a more uplifting outcome knowing Bond was indeed alive. But they would have to continue the storyline with Craig somehow who has vowed to never do another one again. Who knows, maybe that's all part of the big plan to really sell his death as authentic. Maybe the smartblood was in fact the antidote in case Bond came in contact with the nanobots. If any of it kept Bond alive I'd bite hook, line, and sinker!
One thing I have thought about too is why did Bond need to be injected with smartblood again? There's no reference in Spectre that it eventually wears out.
Comments
I don't know that anyone's rooting against NTTD, or even if they are, that there's anything wrong with that. They're certainly entitled to their opinions, which are no less valid than anyone else's. But I do think there's a reality tied to facts, and whether that reality is based on COVID-19, a perception of the film's quality or content, sea changes in theater-going behavior in general, or some other source explanation or combination, NTTD is not on track to do better box office than Spectre, which did less box office than Skyfall.
Rotten Tomatoes and other aggregators is no better or worse a barometer of how well a film is going to do financially than anything else. It's about what critics have said and only those users willing to post or share their opinions -- those tend to be a subset of fans in general rather than a true measure of the movie-going public.
All that said, I would take no pleasure in NTTD failing at the box office nor any celebration if it broke records. I find it a middle film, good at the beginning, uneven for the rest, and -- as others have said -- not emotionally earning its ending. It's understandably been compared to OHMSS, a film which does a far better job of integrating all its parts and driving things home dramatically and thematically. But then that's because the film follows the novel well. To me, NTTD owes a lot of its effect to people making the comparison to OHMSS rather than earning it on its own. But that's just my opinion, no better or worse than anyone else's. I will say, though, it's not a film I would pay to see multiple times in the theater as a result.
I'm not sure if we're arguing with each other or agreeing with each other!
I thought we were agreeing, haha -- you said you doubted people were actively rooting against NTTD, and I added to that I don't know they were, either. I do think there can be flare ups over disagreeing opinions -- there's a tendency on "fan" sites to assume everything must be upbeat and positive, which is unrealistic. But disagreements here seen to have been mild.
My point about Rotten Tomatoes is it doesn't predict financial success as well as critical ones (within limitations), but you were making the point only about how it doesn't seem like many people are hating the downbeat ending. I do think Rotten Tomatoes is limited in terms of gauging actual audience reaction because it relies on people to actively submit their responses.
But -- and I should have been more clear about this -- I do think the sentimentality of NTTD has as much to do with people's familiarity with OHMSS as anything NTTD as a movie actually does. Keep in mind that the most likely person to rush out and see it (especially during a pandemic) in the first week or two is a hardcore fan of the franchise. More general audiences will attend, too, of course, but they're less likely to be the ones there on opening weekend. So any audience buzz we're getting now is more likely to be a fan base rather than a more general audience.
A lot of good points being made here. I think the takeaway for me is that they need to decide what these films should be. This overly emotional stuff (unearned, as Gassy Man and others point out) doesn’t sell tickets to the core audience for Bond. Bind films pre-Craig were reliably escapist fun. Fleming’s books, while totally different in tone to the films, were escapist fun. Half of NTTD (the good half) was escapist fun. See the pattern??
U.S. numbers continuing to fall for NTTD from an off-start to begin with:
"Heading for the runner-up slot is the sophomore outing of MGM and Eon Productions’ “No Time to Die.” The latest James Bond entry took in $7.2 million on Friday, on its way to an estimated second weekend total of $24.16 million. The 56% drop from the film’s somewhat modest opening of $56 million is roughly in-line with that of previous franchise entries “Skyfall” and “Spectre.”
https://www.yahoo.com/now/box-office-halloween-kills-targets-162934847.html
For comparison, not adjusted for inflation, Spectre's opening weekend in the U.S. was $73 million:
https://www.businessinsider.com/spectre-wins-box-office-2015-11
What's your pandemic adjustment formula?
So far I have managed to see the film once. I would like to see it again, but the three hour runtime and the limited theater hours of operation on weekdays in my area has made that almost impossible. With Covid I don't want to deal with the weekend crowds. I may just have to wait until its out on dvd.
I don’t understand the question. What difference would that make?
Straight comparisons of NTTD v Skyfall or Spectre seem to be adjusting, or not, for inflation and making performance or popularity based conclusions whilst not really mentioning the fact that neither film had a headwind of a global pandemic that at its peak closed every cinema in multiple jurisdictions for months, the behavioural effects of which have are far from receding, particularly in some natural Bond demographics. Equally Netflix only launched, for example, streaming in the UK and Ireland in 2012 so when Skyfall came out the number of people choosing to wait to view at home or on a streaming service was zero. Between 2012 and 2019 North American total cinema tickets sold fell by just over 140million tickets (not actually as stark as you might imagine) from 1.381 to 1.239 billion (US definition)... in 2020 for example it cratered down to 223m total.
These factors can't really be ignored. So I just wondered what makeweight or Pandemic allowance you would make for NTTD when comparing to Skyfall or Spectre. Do you double all NTTD figures? x0.25? This is a serious point, for clarity.
As you have said this "But I do think there's a reality tied to facts, and whether that reality is based on COVID-19, a perception of the film's quality or content, sea changes in theater-going behavior in general, or some other source explanation or combination, NTTD is not on track to do better box office than Spectre, which did less box office than Skyfall." but then don't seem to have actually applied any weighting to those facts whilst using it to draw quality/popularity of film conclusions. I should add, more evenhandedly than many across the forum.
But those factors don’t change the tallies, only the explanation for them. If people don’t buy the tickets because of the pandemic or because it’s a full moon, they still don’t buy the tickets. The comparisons to previous films is not to argue for cause and effect but merely the potential box office earnings and how profitability is determined by them. The trends of the past show us patterns.
It may well be possible that NTTD will earn money in streaming or other means, but that remains to be seen. There is no way to determine that and therefore no makeweight to attach. All that we have right now is box office.
Another view on the money situation, from a week ago and more or less echoing what we're hearing elsewhere about ticket sales while also giving some insight to the distribution of those with the theater chains, foreign and domestic:
"But does that mean No Time to Die will end up profitable? Probably not, actually. At least not during its theatrical window. I spent some time this week talking to film finance and exhibition experts about the challenges these days of pushing super-expensive tentpoles into the black. It wasn’t easy before, but now? Even in a best-case scenario, No Time to Die likely won’t get there. Let’s do some quick math."
https://puck.news/james-bonds-long-battle-to-break-even/?utm_source=fb_paidsocial&utm_medium=ACQ%20-%20[LAL%20(1%25)%20Leads]&utm_campaign=AB%20-%20ACQ%20-%20Puck%20Traffic%20[LEAD%20-%20Wave%204]&utm_content=AB%20-%20[TRAFFIC]%20-%20James%20Bond%E2%80%99s%20Long%20Battle%20to%20Break-Even&fbclid=IwAR1w8iZ6Zn81sFAFS4tOJU4ZgHemOIaXvJchOo0O-CZUvPNKKO36TIn9-4g
No Time to Die box office looks to be slipping further, but as the article points out, business across the board is down 20% over this time in 2019:
"“No Time to Die” continues to be good but not great. The 56 percent second-weekend drop is slightly more than “Spectre” or “Skyfall.” At $99.5 million domestic, it lags the 10-day totals for “Spectre” ($129 million) and “Skyfall” ($161 million). It faces “Dune” next week with some overlap in audience. Unlike the previous two Bonds, it won’t get a boost from Thanksgiving play in its fourth week.
Worldwide total is now $447 million ($53 million additional this weekend in foreign territories), with China and Australia ahead. It has a chance of reaching “F9” ($716 million) worldwide as the top grossing non-Chinese production this year. But it will fall short of “Spectre” ($880 million) and “Skyfall” ($1.1 billion). Its producers face a difficult task in the post-Craig era to create a formula that can justify the massive production and marketing costs that Bond films demand."
https://www.yahoo.com/entertainment/halloween-killed-last-duel-dead-193912825.html
NTTD is probably going to end up being the highest or second-highest grossing English language film of the year. That includes several Marvel films, not all of which had same day streaming. If that’s not an endorsement of the franchise and it’s commercial viability, I don’t know what is? Did anyone honestly expect Skyfall or even Spectre numbers? That’s an unrealistic bar in the present climate. NTTD passed the test.
It's not about passing a test. It's merely a thread about how NTTD is doing at the box office, including facing challenges. How well it does, regardless of the reasons why, also will impact what happens next with the franchise, one way or the other.
Perhaps. If the MGM—Amazon merger goes through, I doubt it matters much. EON, or it’s successor, will have significant resources at their disposal, and won’t have to worry about bringing in third parties to distribute. If anything, we’ll get more content, not less. That’s not necessarily a good thing, but I can’t see Amazon sitting around for another 5 years waiting for the Bond producers to do something.
Well, I don't think it's that simple. The Bond movies are tentpoles, and if they aren't profitable, it has implications across the board for whichever studio owns them. A Bond film that isn't profitable (or highly profitable) at the box office may have at least two immediate impacts: 1) A significantly reduced budget for the next Bond film, assuming one is made, and 2) A shift by a studio to cheaper films that may have higher profitability (e.g, rom coms or horror movies), delaying production on another Bond film. A studio may even try to sell off the Bond property, especially if they're debt saddled.
But there's a bigger implication, especially with Bond and streaming services. Driven purely to make money and with a conservative fear that a big budget Bond movie in theaters may not bring in the cash, a streaming service may try to parse out Bond as property. Then we have Bond cartoons, a teen James Bond in his first adventures, a Moneypenny and a Q series, and so forth. On the surface, this may seem like a great renaissance for Bond, but what it also may portend is both an oversaturation of Bond and a dilution of the style and creativity that goes into making a Bond film exclusively every few years.
A reduced budget for a Bond movie is not necessarily a bad thing and makes sense if they're going to introduce a new actor, who is an unknown. I'm not sure the rest would be good for Bond, though.
I agree that none of that, apart from a reduced budget, sounds good. But the movie won’t fail to make a profit because it’s not performing at the box office. Rather, it’s because of the unprecedented delays, which were a result of once-in-a-century events. And Amazon is not a debt-saddled studio that will be looking to sell Bond off. Frankly, they’ve already over-paid for it.
Now, if the Amazon sale doesn’t go through, then that’s a different kettle of fish.
I think it'll make a profit, but not as big a one as its immediate predecessors, and it will take time. Given the ending and pandemic, I'm not sure it has the same repeat business.
But the delays in both making and releasing it just protract the problem, especially if they incurred debt that has to be paid.
One potential upside is if this film doesn't do well, it might actually create impetus for the producers to court Craig back for one more. I'm still not convinced the ending is as final as everyone believes it is. When I watched it a second time, I noticed as the final explosion appears to engulf Bond, the screen goes completely white. I honestly think there's wiggle room in there to pull a fast one. There's actually precedent for it in the movie -- when Bond shoots Saffin's men in the space of hardly a few moments, he turns to shoot Saffin who has already disappeared while a trap door closes. I don't think it's impossible for the writers to come up with a way for Bond to survive.
Do I think that will happen? I doubt it very much. And if they found a way to bring Craig back, it would probably be both overcomplicated and underwhelming. But something to keep in mind is that as Craig's Bond movies have unfolded, they've become increasingly more fantastic.
Sure, I get the intent, but it's being used here and elsewhere to draw qualitative conclusions which are contrary to that - and box office is not a monopole beast.
For example NTTD is now outperforming Spectre for week three figures in the UK and Ireland and even outperformed Skyfall in the domestic US weekend-to-cume figures (opening weekend v tail) albeit with lower raw numbers, interestingly, to your post, it's not clear if that is repeat viewings or people who wanted to avoid crowds: a behavioural change pattern dictated by the pandemic.
Whilst I understand the assertions and traditional implications I'm not sure performance impact on franchises can be viewed in the usual way, as no studio is thinking in the same terms due to the pandemic. Frankly compared to where they were 9 months ago every single penny taken in a theatre has the same impact as pure profit for studios and that will factor into how they view it in relation to your concerns.
When considering the costs of a Bond film you have to factor in $100 million + paid by product placement that went toward production costs. The production cost with additional interest expenses due to delays is reportedly a bit over $200 million and advertising and marketing is reportedly $150 million with Heineken and various sub-distributors contributing to defray those expenses.
Break even is probably somewhere around $400-450 million, assuming the producers get 60% of the domestic box office and 40% of foreign box office, not counting China, where the producer's cut is about 20%.
I suspect they’ll be happy just to get close to moneyback. Studios are still running scared, they just delayed Indiana Jones 5 till 2023
New Bond would be a lower budget anyway as they won’t have to pay Craig’s wages
That would be bad news for EON. My understanding of the current deal between MGM and EON is that in exchange for financing the films, MGM gets 100% of the DVD sales, streaming, etc., while the box office net of exhibitors share is split 50-50.
I'm one of those who didn't particularly like NTTD. @Gassy Man 's description: "I find it a middle film, good at the beginning, uneven for the rest, and -- as others have said -- not emotionally earning its ending" is pretty much where I am. Bond films are the only films I have ever seen at the cinema more than once (excluding festival or review showings of classics like "Lawrence of Arabia" etc). I saw Spectre four times (in three different formats/environments), Skyfall three times, etc., but I won't be going to see NTTD again. I am very much looking forward to seeing the beginning again. I loved Jamaica, loved Matera, and loved Paloma, but despite loving those bits, it's not enough for me to go and see the whole thing again.
Not for a moment would I suggest that I believe 'most' or even 'many' Bond fans feel the same way as I do. This is just me. I saw my first Bond film in the cinema at age 7, read my first Fleming book at age 11, and have been hooked since, but this one just doesn't do it for me. Maybe it's because of the world around me - Globally and personally - that I just didn't need this storyline at this time and found it to be turn-off.
However, I want NTTD to do well at the box office because if it doesn't, that could bode badly for the future of Bond and I have been disappointed and troubled by the lack of buzz or even interest amongst some family and friends. Although a poor showing won't scupper Bond, it could well affect future budgets or the approach to future films. Unlikely if Amazon is the winner, but potentially a little troubling if they're not.
Our backgrounds with Bond sound similar @The Domino Effect, and after that first hour, I don't feel like I need to watch much more until the last 20 minutes. And those last 20 minutes don't feel like they're earned by what precedes them -- the end just happens. I agree, though, that if this film doesn't do well enough, it will be a while before we see another Bond film and in a different form. The problem is there will be a lot of casting about to lay blame -- the pandemic, the changing audience viewing habits, the "big fantasy epic" not being what Bond fans want anymore, etc., as opposed to the reality that about third of No Time to Die is a good film and the rest not so much.
*SPOILERS*
Just not sure how they'd explain the scene with the smartblood showing his vitals zeroed out. I suppose they could explain it away by saying the blasts somehow interfered with the system or that he flatlined similar to in Casino Royale. Highly unlikely however.
It's been a week since I've watched and that excitement I had for this movie to be released has turned into just a sinking feeling. Looking for anything at all Bond related to put a brighter perspective on things and I'm not finding it. This ending changes the way I'll view Craig's others as well. All of the sorrow and pain he goes through for 4 films culminates in his eventual death. It will be difficult to view his earlier movies through any other lense.
Hopefully we get a new Bond announced soon and something to be excited about. Because right now, I for one have never had a lower mood involving the franchise.
I think it's highly unlikely they will bring Craig back.
But let's look at it from a writing point of view (which admittedly might not satisfy some audiences, but then the current end does not either).
We know M is considerably more duplicitous than he was presented in either Skyfall or Spectre. In fact, he's basically retconned into a different character. In the former, he merely looked the other way while Q and Tanner were tracking Bond, suggesting they further misled Silva with "breadcrumbs." In Spectre, M openly fights against Nine Eyes and the implications it has for freedom and democracy -- but here endorses a shadow mode of assassination that has the horrific implications to wipe out entire family lines and races of people. And apparently has no concern for safety protocols and the like. And orders the British Navy to attack an island that is neither in British waters or under British authority.
So, anything's on the table now. For all we know, M may have ordered Q to fake Bond's death on the monitor as part of some bigger, unspecified plan. Or perhaps Q becomes involved in a larger scenario without his knowledge. It's interesting that we A) Don't know exactly what Q injected in Bond, other than what Q says or thinks it is, B) Q is so adamant that there is no cure for nanobots, C) that an EMP watch has no effect on nanobots, D) the screen goes white as the final "explosion" occurs. Maybe the EMP did disable the nanobots. Maybe Bond was injected with something more than smart blood. Maybe some of the bombs were not high explosive at all but merely appeared so. Maybe all this is part of some labyrinthine plan to fake Bond's death, a la the movie You Only Live Twice.
What has become clear is that as Craig's Bonds have continued, they've become more fantastic in their plotting. It would be a stretch no matter how the writers try to explain how Bond survives, but it's not impossible, certainly not in fiction and certainly not given the Bonds have slowly moved back into traditional territory, if only dipping their toe. But I think they purposefully left a bit of wiggle room there.
Bond's wristwatch disabled the electronics in Cyclops's eye but didn't damage the electronics in Bond's ear-piece which was basically the same distance away, so anything is possible 😉.
Since there are so many nods to previous Bond films - OHMSS and YOLT in particular - it does make complete sense for Bond to have survived. Far-fetched, yes, but then many things in Bond-dom are far-fetched even in the grittier world of DC. That said, I fear they've made the DC5 a self-contained unit and moving forward there will be no return of these specific M, Q, and MPs (we'll get new, fresh, unsullied M,Q, and MPs), and we'll just pick-up in some parallel universe and start a new Bond thread-line.
Yeah, that's a great point. To me, there's a lot of slop in No Time to Die, both in terms of the drama and the details. I felt the same with Skyfall, but they poured on the sentimentality, so a lot of audiences looked the other way. This one tries to do similarly, but the middle sags, to the degree that I wasn't caught up enough in the strangely flat domestic stuff to not pay as much attention in the climax.
I am intrigued by the points you made! It would certainly be a more uplifting outcome knowing Bond was indeed alive. But they would have to continue the storyline with Craig somehow who has vowed to never do another one again. Who knows, maybe that's all part of the big plan to really sell his death as authentic. Maybe the smartblood was in fact the antidote in case Bond came in contact with the nanobots. If any of it kept Bond alive I'd bite hook, line, and sinker!
One thing I have thought about too is why did Bond need to be injected with smartblood again? There's no reference in Spectre that it eventually wears out.