Spectre's North American Opening

Originally Posted on November 8, 2015.

It's Sunday afternoon, which means the estimates are in regarding Spectre's opening weekend performance.

Alas, no big surprises. The take was $73 million, close to the high end of the range of estimates given out, which was about what most people (myself included) expected it to be.

Especially given that, as the weaker reviews hint, there is less likely to be the kind of good word-of-mouth that keeps people coming in over the following weeks--it seems that reviews of the film keep getting more critical ("worst Bond movie in years" the one from Vox says in its title)--it's hard to picture the movie doing much more than tripling its take. Again, my guess is that we will see it finish up in the $200-250 million range in America, while improvements in earnings elsewhere will offset its weaker earnings in this market.

Still, I suspect that, where the success of Skyfall encouraged the producers to continue in the same direction, the darker spots in the film's international performance, and the sense that the shine is off the reboot, the nearly certain fifth Daniel Craig Bond film is likely to see yet another round of modifications to the character.