It depends on how you define "most successful." In terms of straightforward revenue, Skyfall edges out Thunderball (adjusted for inflation). But that may not take into account profitability (production/marketing costs versus earnings), how many screens a film was shown on, how many countries it was screened in, how many tickets were sold, and so forth. It's possible that even though Skyfall earned more money in total, it was actually less profitable than other Bond films or sold fewer tickets. That sort of information is tough to come by, or at least I haven't been able to locate it online.
For example, though it's often perceived as a failure, OHMSS service cost about $7 million to make but earned $82 million at the box office (not adjusted for inflation). Even doubling its production cost to include marketing and the like, that means it earned four or more times its cost. By comparison, Skyfall cost anywhere from $150-$200 million. Assuming the marketing and so forth doubles that, it cost $300-$400 million and earned $1.1 billion at the box office. That's only at most about three times the cost.
Thunderball did even better, costing about $9 million to make (or in this equation, doubling that to $18 million to including marketing and related costs) against box office of $141 million (not adjusted for inflation).
In terms of literal dollar amounts, Skyfall did better, but in terms of cost-to-performance rations, Skyfall is not as successful. And this is assuming there aren't additional issues I'm not aware of, like the costs of other studio films that did poorly being tacked on.
I don't know the odds, but there's a chance that NTTD ($708.7 million worldwide and counting) overtakes F:9 ($721 million) as the top grosser of the pandemic in 2021.
It has. NTTD crossed the $700 million mark internationally this past weekend, with about $559 million of that outside the U.S. (How strange it is to use the U.S. as the anchor point for a British film, that's how the reporting here slants it.)
"It has surpassed every Bourne movie, every Mission: Impossible save for Fallout ($792 million) and both Kingsman movies. It has grossed more than the combined respective global grosses of the Austin Powers trilogy ($676 million on a combined $116 million budget) and the Xander Cage/xXx trilogy ($683 million/$215 million)."
Obviously sad news for all of us as I believe every Bond actor and director now has 'not surpassing the xXx trilogy box office' as a default clause in their contracts whereby they have to spend at least 5 years travelling door to door apologising to fans in person....I assume 😁
My brain is too small to understand Hollywood accounting, but it's been a matter of pride (to quote M in TLD) that no Bond movie ever has flopped at the box office. Not one. Obviously some make more than others, but how not?
I feel that NTTD would have made (even) more if it has been released earlier, but it has done very well considering the timing and there shouldn't be even a blink at greenlighting another Bond movie.
My father and nephew went for second viewing at cinema this weekend and despite it now being available on streaming the screen was about 80% full, pretty impressive
MGM/Eon/Universal’s No Time to Die is crossing $733M worldwide this weekend, making it the highest-grossing Hollywood film of 2021 — and of the pandemic era.
After topping $708M through last Sunday, and becoming the biggest Hollywood movie overseas in 2021 and throughout the pandemic, we’ve been expecting Mr. Bond to overtake the previous global leader, Universal’s own F9 ($725M WW cume and the only other studio movie to cross $700M this year). In total to date, Daniel Craig’s last turn as 007 has an estimated gross of $154M domestic and $579M at the international box office.
...On October 20, it became Hollywood’s No. 2 movie of 2021 globally and continued to hit new benchmarks, crossing $700M last weekend. Overall throughout its run, it scored the biggest pandemic opening weekend in 36 markets.
No Time to Die is released internationally via Universal and domestically through MGM’s United Artists Releasing banner.
Overseas currently accounts for 79% of the global total, and highlights include the UK, which is the lead offshore play at $128M. NTTD is the fifth-biggest movie of all time in the market and the top movie of the pandemic, reaching that mark in its first four days of release.
In Germany ($72M cume to date), NTTD held No. 1 for six weeks and is Universal’s top title ever in the market. One of the rare recent studio titles to score a timely release in China, NTTD is the fourth-biggest Hollywood movie of the year there ($60M estimated cume). France, at an estimated $32M, and Netherlands with an estimated $22M so far, round out the Top 5 markets. In the latter, 007 held No. 1 for seven consecutive weeks and this frame will become the market’s fourth-biggest film ever and the top Bond of all time.
In other highlights, Australia’s November 11 opening was the biggest in the market since December 2019 (current cume $15M).
In Denmark, No Time to Die was No. 1 for seven weeks, had the biggest Bond opening ever and is the top 007 title of all time. It is the second movie in the country’s history to cross DKK 100M in gross box office.
For the Middle East, the movie is the biggest across the region in 2021; and Eastern Europe has also performed very strongly with top 2021 openings in Czech Republic, Hungary, Pland and Slovakia.
In Russia, Hong Kong, Ukraine, Colombia, Argentina, Sweden and the Baltics, No Time to Die is the biggest Bond film ever.
My mum did say its a "bit of a downer ending". She's had a hard year and maybe would have preferred a bit of escapism.
She also said the scenery is beautiful, thats what she always enjoyed about the old films, and this new film does deliver on the travelogue exotic location content better than any Bond film in years.
She also said Daniel Craig is "not hard to look at", so there you go, 85 year old women find Craig attractive. When I said thats ironic, because male Bond fans are always calling Craig ugly, she said "Craig looks masculine, women like that"
I've barely spoken to anyone about it and no one has mentioned it to me. I'm not sure what that proves other than the fact I don't discuss going to the cinema much with anyone and I've stopped discussing Bond with people outside of a forum because I find most of my friends / family / colleagues simply don't "get" James Bond the way I do.
With the new Covid mutation discovered in South Africa it looks like EON picked the optimal time for NTTD's cinema run. I hope I'm wrong, but I don't think so.
The Scandinavian countries, Austria and many other countries are closing down (to different degrees) again because of Omikron. Congratulations to EON for releasing NTTD at pretty much the optimum time. Just a few weeks earlier or later and they would've lost tens, perhaps even hundreds of millions.
There’s still the Spider-Man movie coming out which is a good bet to surpass NTTD (although maybe not with Omicron on the scene). The Matrix reboot, too, but I think that franchise has lost its luster.
No Time to Die has surpassed $770 million worldwide, which suggests it will likely finish its box office run lower than $900 million some industry observers have suggested it needs to break even. That's pretty respectable given the pandemic, but then investors and such aren't concerned about respectability so much as a return on their investment.
It'll be interesting to see how NTTD recoups its costs and gets into the black. The home market likely will save it, which means Eon took a gamble and it paid off. I'm assuming the movie will get a bump over the holidays the next few weeks, but a lot of home viewers likely will rent it. Of course, there are also the DVD/Blu-Ray sales. All that said, I'm going to guess -- and, of course, it's only a guess -- the movie in the long run is going to have missed about $250 million in revenues for having come out so late and then been hit by the pandemic. That doesn't include what they could have made had they produced another one or two Bond films in the years between Quantum of Solace and Skyfall and Spectre and No Time to Die. Nonetheless, No Time to Die will turn a profit, even if it takes a while.
There are only a few weeks left of the year and Omikron will be a big problem. I'm far from being an expert, but I can't ser Spider-man and Matrix getting more sales than NTTD in 2021.
Hollywood counts box office receipts starting with the day the movie hits theaters rather than earnings within the calendar year. It’s just accounting hocus pocus. But It’s not uncommon for the highest earners of a given year on industry lists to be films that opened around Christmas and then made their money in January, February, etc.
The fact remains that NTTD performed damned well under the circumstances. Eon mismanaged a lot with this movie over the past years but they were brilliant in the end game.
That is, like you say, accounting hocus pocus. In real life NTTD is the English language movie that made the most money in 2021. I suppose that also means NTTD is the most viewed English language movie at the cinema this year.
No Way Home made a ridiculous $121.5 million on Friday (that includes around $50 million from Thursday night previews) in the USA alone. It's tracking to overtake NTTD's US box office haul on its second day of release and is projected to have a $240 million weekend debut in the USA alone. It will almost certainly overtake NTTD's worldwide box office; only question mark is if it does it before the end of the year, which at this point seems quite doable.
Superhero movies appeal to a wider demographic, be it younger viewers who love the action and super powers on display or older fans who grew up reading the source material and get a kick out of seeing a live action translation. Their ability to tap into that wider audience is at the heart of why they typically rake in so much money. That younger viewer is a demographic that Bond has had a harder and harder time tapping into lately.
They also don't put the egos of their stars ahead of the actual movie; working instead to make a crowd pleasing experience that doesn't take itself too seriously and that the fans can actually feel good about when leaving the theater.
BTW, the final box office for the 3 day weekend was $253 million in the USA, $587 million worldwide. At that rate, it should easily overtake NTTD by the end of the week.
But to your point about Bond catering to older audiences, that's undeniably true and a reason that NTTD's box office numbers weren't higher in the US (compared with something like Shang-Chi drew a younger audience not concerned about Covid).
Eon has set a high bar for Bond movies that unless they top $1 billion, they will be considered disappointments, and I think that's a real problem going forward.
Comments
It depends on how you define "most successful." In terms of straightforward revenue, Skyfall edges out Thunderball (adjusted for inflation). But that may not take into account profitability (production/marketing costs versus earnings), how many screens a film was shown on, how many countries it was screened in, how many tickets were sold, and so forth. It's possible that even though Skyfall earned more money in total, it was actually less profitable than other Bond films or sold fewer tickets. That sort of information is tough to come by, or at least I haven't been able to locate it online.
For example, though it's often perceived as a failure, OHMSS service cost about $7 million to make but earned $82 million at the box office (not adjusted for inflation). Even doubling its production cost to include marketing and the like, that means it earned four or more times its cost. By comparison, Skyfall cost anywhere from $150-$200 million. Assuming the marketing and so forth doubles that, it cost $300-$400 million and earned $1.1 billion at the box office. That's only at most about three times the cost.
Thunderball did even better, costing about $9 million to make (or in this equation, doubling that to $18 million to including marketing and related costs) against box office of $141 million (not adjusted for inflation).
In terms of literal dollar amounts, Skyfall did better, but in terms of cost-to-performance rations, Skyfall is not as successful. And this is assuming there aren't additional issues I'm not aware of, like the costs of other studio films that did poorly being tacked on.
NTTD has opened in Australia to $11.23 million, taking 70% of the total weekend box office.
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I don't know the odds, but there's a chance that NTTD ($708.7 million worldwide and counting) overtakes F:9 ($721 million) as the top grosser of the pandemic in 2021.
I read somewhere they’re expecting a final figure of $760M worldwide.
Must be a dead cert to overtake FF9
It has. NTTD crossed the $700 million mark internationally this past weekend, with about $559 million of that outside the U.S. (How strange it is to use the U.S. as the anchor point for a British film, that's how the reporting here slants it.)
https://www.hollywoodreporter.com/movies/movie-news/no-time-to-die-box-office-passes-f9-1235047763/
I enjoyed reading this in Forbes.
"It has surpassed every Bourne movie, every Mission: Impossible save for Fallout ($792 million) and both Kingsman movies. It has grossed more than the combined respective global grosses of the Austin Powers trilogy ($676 million on a combined $116 million budget) and the Xander Cage/xXx trilogy ($683 million/$215 million)."
Obviously sad news for all of us as I believe every Bond actor and director now has 'not surpassing the xXx trilogy box office' as a default clause in their contracts whereby they have to spend at least 5 years travelling door to door apologising to fans in person....I assume 😁
My brain is too small to understand Hollywood accounting, but it's been a matter of pride (to quote M in TLD) that no Bond movie ever has flopped at the box office. Not one. Obviously some make more than others, but how not?
I feel that NTTD would have made (even) more if it has been released earlier, but it has done very well considering the timing and there shouldn't be even a blink at greenlighting another Bond movie.
Even Casino Royale 1967 was a box office success
My father and nephew went for second viewing at cinema this weekend and despite it now being available on streaming the screen was about 80% full, pretty impressive
From Deadline: ‘No Time To Die’ Outguns ‘F9’ To Become Biggest Hollywood Title Of 2021 & The Pandemic Worldwide
MGM/Eon/Universal’s No Time to Die is crossing $733M worldwide this weekend, making it the highest-grossing Hollywood film of 2021 — and of the pandemic era.
After topping $708M through last Sunday, and becoming the biggest Hollywood movie overseas in 2021 and throughout the pandemic, we’ve been expecting Mr. Bond to overtake the previous global leader, Universal’s own F9 ($725M WW cume and the only other studio movie to cross $700M this year). In total to date, Daniel Craig’s last turn as 007 has an estimated gross of $154M domestic and $579M at the international box office.
...On October 20, it became Hollywood’s No. 2 movie of 2021 globally and continued to hit new benchmarks, crossing $700M last weekend. Overall throughout its run, it scored the biggest pandemic opening weekend in 36 markets.
No Time to Die is released internationally via Universal and domestically through MGM’s United Artists Releasing banner.
Overseas currently accounts for 79% of the global total, and highlights include the UK, which is the lead offshore play at $128M. NTTD is the fifth-biggest movie of all time in the market and the top movie of the pandemic, reaching that mark in its first four days of release.
In Germany ($72M cume to date), NTTD held No. 1 for six weeks and is Universal’s top title ever in the market. One of the rare recent studio titles to score a timely release in China, NTTD is the fourth-biggest Hollywood movie of the year there ($60M estimated cume). France, at an estimated $32M, and Netherlands with an estimated $22M so far, round out the Top 5 markets. In the latter, 007 held No. 1 for seven consecutive weeks and this frame will become the market’s fourth-biggest film ever and the top Bond of all time.
In other highlights, Australia’s November 11 opening was the biggest in the market since December 2019 (current cume $15M).
In Denmark, No Time to Die was No. 1 for seven weeks, had the biggest Bond opening ever and is the top 007 title of all time. It is the second movie in the country’s history to cross DKK 100M in gross box office.
For the Middle East, the movie is the biggest across the region in 2021; and Eastern Europe has also performed very strongly with top 2021 openings in Czech Republic, Hungary, Pland and Slovakia.
In Russia, Hong Kong, Ukraine, Colombia, Argentina, Sweden and the Baltics, No Time to Die is the biggest Bond film ever.
Yup. Even my mum went twice :)
In the enormously important Norwegian market (😏) NTTD is about to outperform SPECTRE.
Exact same experience here for me…not heard a bad word from anyone about it 🍸
My mum did say its a "bit of a downer ending". She's had a hard year and maybe would have preferred a bit of escapism.
She also said the scenery is beautiful, thats what she always enjoyed about the old films, and this new film does deliver on the travelogue exotic location content better than any Bond film in years.
She also said Daniel Craig is "not hard to look at", so there you go, 85 year old women find Craig attractive. When I said thats ironic, because male Bond fans are always calling Craig ugly, she said "Craig looks masculine, women like that"
I've barely spoken to anyone about it and no one has mentioned it to me. I'm not sure what that proves other than the fact I don't discuss going to the cinema much with anyone and I've stopped discussing Bond with people outside of a forum because I find most of my friends / family / colleagues simply don't "get" James Bond the way I do.
With the new Covid mutation discovered in South Africa it looks like EON picked the optimal time for NTTD's cinema run. I hope I'm wrong, but I don't think so.
Looks like the flick is now up to $758M worldwide.
The Scandinavian countries, Austria and many other countries are closing down (to different degrees) again because of Omikron. Congratulations to EON for releasing NTTD at pretty much the optimum time. Just a few weeks earlier or later and they would've lost tens, perhaps even hundreds of millions.
"Box-office mojo" says NTTD is number three in the world box office in 2021. The two movies above it on the list are both Chinese.
There’s still the Spider-Man movie coming out which is a good bet to surpass NTTD (although maybe not with Omicron on the scene). The Matrix reboot, too, but I think that franchise has lost its luster.
No Time to Die has surpassed $770 million worldwide, which suggests it will likely finish its box office run lower than $900 million some industry observers have suggested it needs to break even. That's pretty respectable given the pandemic, but then investors and such aren't concerned about respectability so much as a return on their investment.
It'll be interesting to see how NTTD recoups its costs and gets into the black. The home market likely will save it, which means Eon took a gamble and it paid off. I'm assuming the movie will get a bump over the holidays the next few weeks, but a lot of home viewers likely will rent it. Of course, there are also the DVD/Blu-Ray sales. All that said, I'm going to guess -- and, of course, it's only a guess -- the movie in the long run is going to have missed about $250 million in revenues for having come out so late and then been hit by the pandemic. That doesn't include what they could have made had they produced another one or two Bond films in the years between Quantum of Solace and Skyfall and Spectre and No Time to Die. Nonetheless, No Time to Die will turn a profit, even if it takes a while.
https://www.forbes.com/sites/scottmendelson/2021/12/12/box-office-no-time-to-die-tops-770m-while-eternals-and-dune-approach-400m/?sh=7d45ea7966e4
There are only a few weeks left of the year and Omikron will be a big problem. I'm far from being an expert, but I can't ser Spider-man and Matrix getting more sales than NTTD in 2021.
Hollywood counts box office receipts starting with the day the movie hits theaters rather than earnings within the calendar year. It’s just accounting hocus pocus. But It’s not uncommon for the highest earners of a given year on industry lists to be films that opened around Christmas and then made their money in January, February, etc.
The fact remains that NTTD performed damned well under the circumstances. Eon mismanaged a lot with this movie over the past years but they were brilliant in the end game.
That is, like you say, accounting hocus pocus. In real life NTTD is the English language movie that made the most money in 2021. I suppose that also means NTTD is the most viewed English language movie at the cinema this year.
No Way Home made a ridiculous $121.5 million on Friday (that includes around $50 million from Thursday night previews) in the USA alone. It's tracking to overtake NTTD's US box office haul on its second day of release and is projected to have a $240 million weekend debut in the USA alone. It will almost certainly overtake NTTD's worldwide box office; only question mark is if it does it before the end of the year, which at this point seems quite doable.
Superhero movies are opium for the cinema-going masses.
Superhero movies appeal to a wider demographic, be it younger viewers who love the action and super powers on display or older fans who grew up reading the source material and get a kick out of seeing a live action translation. Their ability to tap into that wider audience is at the heart of why they typically rake in so much money. That younger viewer is a demographic that Bond has had a harder and harder time tapping into lately.
They also don't put the egos of their stars ahead of the actual movie; working instead to make a crowd pleasing experience that doesn't take itself too seriously and that the fans can actually feel good about when leaving the theater.
BTW, the final box office for the 3 day weekend was $253 million in the USA, $587 million worldwide. At that rate, it should easily overtake NTTD by the end of the week.
Did you see Joker? The feel-good movie of 2019!
But to your point about Bond catering to older audiences, that's undeniably true and a reason that NTTD's box office numbers weren't higher in the US (compared with something like Shang-Chi drew a younger audience not concerned about Covid).
Eon has set a high bar for Bond movies that unless they top $1 billion, they will be considered disappointments, and I think that's a real problem going forward.
I bet Spider Man doesn't die at the end if it either