With Spectre’s unprecedented opening day takings, Neil Calloway looks at how recent Bonds have fared at the box office…
There is no bigger event in British cinema than a new Bond film. For a while the Harry Potter films may have eclipsed it, but every Bond film is an event surrounded by unprecedented media attention. In global cinema, perhaps only Star Wars comes close for history and build up, and we haven’t had a Star Wars film for a while (though there are whispers that a new one is in the works). Bond seeps into other parts of British life when a new film is out – just this week The Times had “For Your Eyes Only” as its front page headline about a story linked to the government listening department GCHQ.
Spectre – formerly known as Bond Number 24, aka Skyfall 2 or Casino Royale Part 4, got its premiere in London on Monday night, with screenings around the country beginning shortly after the stars – and royalty – sat down to watch the film at the Royal Albert Hall. That night, with only time for a couple of screenings, it made £4 million.
Four million might not sound like much when the film cost more than £100 million to make, but the British box office isn’t that big. Spectre made in one night more than the Oscar-winning Boyhood made in its entire British theatrical run last year. Inflation aside, you could probably make the first three Bond films with the money Spectre took that night.
With a full day of screenings on Tuesday, Spectre made £6.3 million across 647 screens. In 2012, Skyfall, the biggest film ever at the UK box office, made £20.1 million in its opening weekend on 587 screens. Spectre, then, made a screen average of just under ten thousand, whereas Skyfall‘s opening weekend made £34,000 per screen. It may not be as much, but then I’m comparing the takings from one weekday to the Friday to Sunday takings of Skyfall; by opening on a Monday, the studio have ensured seven days of screenings will be counted in their opening weekend. Spectre, therefore, will probably have the biggest opening weekend of a film this year, unless there is another really big film between now and the end of December that might beat it.
Comparing it to other Bonds, Casino Royale made £1.7 million on its opening day (a Thursday) in 2006, setting a record for the series then, by taking in more than double the amount that Die Another Day, the previous instalment and the last to star Pierce Brosnan, made in the same time.
Quantum of Solace, seen by many as the blip in the series since Daniel Craig took over, made £15.5 million in its opening weekend (after its record opening, Casino Royale would make slightly less in its opening weekend, grossing almost thirteen and a half million).
Spectre will be the biggest British film of the year, but probably not the biggest film of the year to be shot in Britain (that honour will go to a small film directed by the guy who did Alias and Lost). Even that film, though cannot compete with the place Bond has in the British psyche; at the opening ceremony of the 2012 Olympics, it wasn’t a Shakespeare character, or someone from Dickens, or Austen, or Harry Potter that the Queen appeared with, it was Bond, it’s only Bond that can dominate every part of the British media both before and during production and on its release. It’s only Bond that can dominate the box office like it does.
Neil Calloway is a pub quiz extraordinaire and Top Gun obsessive. Check back here every Sunday for future instalments.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?list=PL18yMRIfoszEaHYNDTy5C-cH9Oa2gN5ng&v=_SyT3SfEj2Q
Originally published November 1, 2015. Updated April 14, 2018.
