When it comes to Bond and the box office, the world is enough, and the bigger exclamation, as we first told you earlier this week, was going to be in No Time to Die‘s global figure, which is coming in at $145.5M (very close to the $150M we reported), comprised of its opening weekend domestic and second weekend abroad. We’ve heard there’s great holds throughout Europe, and with even bigger riches ahead in China, when the Cary Joji Fukunaga film lands there. All-in right now for the MGM/United Artist Releasing/Universal/Eon title is $313.3M. However, domestic came in at the lower end of expectations with a $56M start. Saturday was steeper than initially figured yesterday, with $18.1M, -22%. Tracking and UAR always expected No Time to Die to open between $55M-$60M, and somehow the greater PR narrative on the film seemed to position the 25th Bond as though it was going to play like a Marvel movie. That was never in the cards at the domestic B.O. Thirty-nine percent of the audience was between 18-34 versus Venom: Let There Be Carnage‘s first weekend grab of that crowd, which was 64%.

Also, we told you, this is the range that the last two Mission: Impossibles opened at, and those were in the late summer. Among all Bond movies, No Time to Die is the fourth-biggest at the domestic B.O., after Skyfall ($88.3M), Spectre ($70.4M) and Quantum of Solace ($67.5M). It’s also the longest 007 title ever at 2 hours and 43 minutes. Also something to note, only 88% of all 5,8K U.S. and Canadian theaters are open during the pandemic. While a majority of states have their theaters open, only Delaware can boast that 100% of their theaters are open.

No Time to Die can look forward to some more cash tomorrow, Monday, when the Northeast takes a holiday for Indigenous Peoples’ Day. In addition, Bond typically holds well in its subsequent weekends, and we hear there’s an indication that even though there wasn’t an overabundance of older adults, there were those older Bond fans who did come out to the theater for the first time in two years. Those over 45 repped 36% of the audience.

True, it’s a very competitive October, and two blockbusters back-to-back like Venom: Let There Be Carnage and No Time to Die did impact each other. No Time to Die couldn’t go any later, I hear, because of its brand partner campaign. In addition, Top Gun: Maverick had dibs on the Thanksgiving frame. By the time Paramount moved it, UAR’s marketing for No Time to Die was already locked and loaded.

At the same time, what shouldn’t be lost on Wall Street is that No Time to Die, together with Sony’s Venom 2, fueled a very good weekend during the pandemic for exhibition, with an estimated $110M, -13% from last weekend, and -22% off from the same period in 2019, when Joker‘s second weekend ruled with $55.8M, UAR opened Addams Family to $30M, and Paramount’s Will Smith movie Gemini Man debuted to $20.6M.

Venom 2, by the end of Monday, will see $146.5M, clocking ahead of the original movie’s running total of 11 days, which was $144.9M. That’s remarkable for this time when moviegoing is looking to get back on its feet, and very noteworthy as Venom 2‘s second weekend decline of -64%, or $32M, was in the face of tentpole competition. Previous big blockbusters like F9 and Black Widow experienced respective -67% and -68% second weekend drops without any competition.

“A lot of people came out and saw this movie, and it was the first movie they went back to the cinemas for. No Time to Die will play and play. They’ll tell friends how much fun they had at the theater, and then they’ll come back,” said UAR President of Distribution Erik Lomis, who, with No Time to Die, counts the seventh 007 title he’s released after a great track record at MGM. For UAR Marketing Boss Gerry Rich, it’s the fifth Bond film he’s worked on. MGM Film President Jonathan Glickman stayed aboard after leaving the studio in January 2020 to provide guidance on No Time to Die. 

Anyone thinking that vaccine cards curb theatrical business, think again. New York City, where vax cards are enforced, was the top market for No Time to Die in the nation, with AMC Lincoln Square being the pic’s top destination.

Other top-grossing theaters, most of them AMCs, include the AMC Burbank, the AMC Empire 25, the Regal Irvine, the TCL Chinese in Hollywood, Cinemark’s Lincoln Square in Seattle, Scotiabank in Toronto, the AMC Metreon in San Francisco, AMC’s the Grove in LA and AMC’s Tyson Corners in Washington D.C.

Some of you have suggested that as CEO of @AMCTheatres I’ve been playing chess while detractors played checkers. On the weekend that James Bond’s No Time to Die opens in the U.S., it feels more like AMC is playing 3-Dimensional Chess. To the naysayers, I say it loud: #CHOKEonTHAT pic.twitter.com/FVevPWD62X

— Adam Aron (@CEOAdam) October 8, 2021

Other top markets after NYC for Bond were Los Angeles, San Francisco, Chicago, Dallas, Toronto, DC, Seattle and Salt Lake City.

EntTelligence reports that 4.2M patrons watched No Time to Die this weekend, with over 400K coming out for previews. Showing the older targets desired time to see the film, on Saturday only 12% of No Time to Die‘s business came after 9PM, while Venom 2 had near 20% of their business during the late night hours. Venom 2 did have more overall seats because of its runtime. But both titles did have the equal percentage of their individual available seats post 9PM.

Audience exits ticked up a tad between Friday and Saturday to 83% positive on PostTrak, and 63% definite recommend for No Time to Die. Sixty one percent said that Craig’s final turn as Bond met their expectations, while 29% said it exceeded. As is typical during the pandemic, those heading to the cinema are deciding to do so at the last minute, with 65% buying their tickets the day they saw No Time to Die and 15% the day before, versus 14% within the last week.

Among the reasons for those attending No Time to Die: 45% bought tickets because they love Bond, 38% came for Craig, 28% attended because the person they were with wanted to see the film, while 24% respectively came for the cast and the subject/plot. Twenty-four percent of the audience came with a spouse or partner, 19% came with a friend, and 17% with an adult family member. Of those who plan to buy or rent the DVD or watch on digital, they numbered 56% while 22% said they’d go see the movie again in theaters.

Now, UAR has been marketing Bond for quite some time: The first trailer dropped on Dec. 4, 2019, and there was a Super Bowl ad thereafter before the pandemic lockdown. iSpot estimates that stateside, $22M was spent in TV ads, yielding 1.5 billion impressions. I’ve heard global P&A, which started and stopped, is (revised) in the $175M range. iSpot says that NBC, Fox, ESPN, CBS and Telemundo were the top networks advertising No Time to Die, on such programs as NFL, Super Bowl LIV, the Tokyo Summer Olympics, college football, and SportsCenter.

Before catching No Time to Die over the weekend, PostTrak exits showed that 37% of the audience watched the pic’s trailer or clips before attending a month or prior before, 20% caught a trailer this week, while 16% saw it the day they went to the theater. Close to a third of the audience didn’t watch a trailer or film clip before going to No Time to Die. 

No Time to Die‘s campaign kicked off on Good Morning America with a trailer launch and digital boards takeover in Times Square. There was a spot in the NFL Season Opener which ignited the pic’s TV campaign, including spots during NFL matchups, MLB Playoffs, high-profile prime finales, and new season premieres.

There was a custom spot on ESPN featuring Karl Anthony Townes as a Bond Stunt Double. There was also a strong audio campaign in the top 18x markets targeting multiple formats, along with Station ID takeovers and DJ Chatter. UAR targeted streaming audio to younger consumers, and podcast coverage in NY Times, The Daily and Joe Rogan.

Oct. 5 was Global James Bond Day, with a media blitz stunt across all TV dayparts, including Univision Prime Novella roadblock, heavy local radio, including station ID takeovers and heavy-up on streaming audio platforms, and numerous high-impact digital takeovers, including T-Mobile Tuesday partnership and Promoted Twitter Trend.

Overall, a robust digital campaign delivered over 750MM impressions and 175MM video views targeted to broad moviegoers and Bond fans. There were 31 high impact takeovers the week of release across connected TV, audio, social, and ticketing partners.

Social Media analytics firm RelishMix reports that Spectre in 2015 had a social media universe of 188.2M, including 164M YouTube video and pre-dated Facebook video counts, and with Instagram during its early days. No Time to Die clocked over 736.5M in its social media reach, including 588.3M YouTube views from earned and owned posts, 79.4M Facebook views and the Instagram page at 1.6M.

The Billie Eilish effect on the film includes her 172.8M fans (92.5M on Instagram, 31M FB, 6.2M Twitter and 43.1M YouTube subs) and the top two videos on Youtube at 104.8M and 45.7M views of the theme song, with 4.5M fans. Other cast activated include Christoph Waltz at 532K, Naomie Harris at 465K, Jeffrey Wright at 407K, and Billy Magnussen at 88K. Ana de Armas posted quite time ago about the film to her 4.6M Instagram followers. Daniel Craig, Rami Malek and Lea Seydoux are non social.

https://twitter.com/billieeilish/status/1445419266744877058?ref_src=twsrc%5Etfw%7Ctwcamp%5Etweetembed%7Ctwterm%5E1445419266744877058%7Ctwgr%5E%7Ctwcon%5Es1_&ref_url=https%3A%2F%2Fdeadline.com%2F2021%2F10%2Fno-time-to-die-weekend-box-office-1234852700%2F

 

via Deadline