Box office report: Spectre earns second highest Bond opening of all time
After a few lackluster weekends in a row, James Bond helped to shake (and stir) the box office, opening to an estimated $73 million for the second biggest Bond debut of all time.
Opening in 3,972 theaters, the widest release ever for a Bond movie, Spectre fell short of Skyfall’s $88.4 million record from November 2012. Still, Spectre’s launch makes it the seventh biggest opening of the year, and it bested Quantum of Solace’s $67.5 million to secure second place on list of best-ever Bond openings. Plus, Spectre has already broken a slew of international records, most notably beating out Skyfall to earn the biggest seven-day U.K. opening of all time.
Spectre, which reunites Skyfall director Sam Mendes and Daniel Craig as 007, also snagged an A- CinemaScore, despite so-so reviews, which suggests that positive word-of-mouth could help give it long legs.
The Peanuts Movie also made a solid debut, bringing in an estimated $45 million. The big-screen retelling of Charles M. Schulz’s classic comic strip earned a stellar A CinemaScore, and Peanuts’ big debut may have eaten into Spectre’s audience. When Skyfall opened in November 2012, it did so unopposed.
Holdovers The Martian, Goosebumps, and Bridge of Spies rounded out the top five, and The Martian held up even better than expected in its sixth weekend, falling only about 21 percent for an estimated $9.3 million. Its domestic total is now at $197.1 million, surpassing Mission: Impossible – Rogue Nation to become the seventh biggest movie of the year. The family-friendly Goosebumps earned an estimated $7 million in its fourth weekend for a domestic total of $66.5 million, and Bridge of Spies made $6.1 million, also in its fourth weekend, for a $55 million domestic total.
At the specialty box office, a trio of new movies made their debuts in limited release, with Spotlight, the drama about the Boston Globe’s exposé on sex abuse in the Catholic Church, performing the best, earning $302,276 in five theaters, for a per-theater average of more than $60,000. Brooklyn, which stars Saiorse Ronan as an Irish immigrant in 1950s New York, also debuted in five theaters, earning $181,00 for a per-location average of $36,200. Meanwhile, Trumbo, starring Bryan Cranston as the blacklisted Hollywood screenwriter, opened to $77,229 with an average of $15,445.
All together, this weekend brought in an estimated $163 million, more than double last weekend’s dismal Halloween total. Here are this weekend’s top five at the box office:
1. Spectre — $73 million
2. The Peanuts Movie — $45 million
3. The Martian — $9.3 million
4. Goosebumps — $7 million
5. Bridge of Spies — $6.1 million