Weekend estimates: No Time to Die lands with solid $56 million domestically, hits $300 million worldwide
October 10, 2021
After posting record-breaking preview numbers on Thursday, No Time to Die has shown surprisingly weak legs over the remainder of the weekend, and United Artists is projecting it will earn $56.007 million this weekend. While that’s below what seemed possible as of Friday morning, it’s a very solid number for the pandemic era, and almost exactly the same as our model’s original prediction of $56.8 million. That counts as a victory at the end of the day, albeit one that feels a bit diminished given its strong start. Curiously, by almost every measure, it looks like a film that should have performed well through the weekend, and it might yet prove to have long legs.
Here’s how the weekend as a whole is stacking up…
As of Friday morning, our model, which combined our pre-release prediction and an extrapolation based on Thursday preview numbers, predicted a total weekend of $70.6 million for No Time to Die. The reason for what proved to be an overly-optimistic assessment was the traditionally high multiplier between Thursday preview numbers and opening weekend box office for the Bond franchise. Spectre earned more than 13 times its previews over opening weekend, and Skyfall had a sky-high multiplier of 19.2. If No Time to Die had matched Spectre’s performance in that regard it would be set for an $84-million weekend (matching Skyfall would have equated to a $121-million debut!).
We now know that No Time to Die was much more front loaded than the previous two films, with a multiplier around 8.9. That normally is an indication of what we have sometimes called a “fanboy effect”, where the fans of a franchise flock to theaters when a film opens, but more general audiences don’t show up in similar numbers. That effect is most commonly seen in films with a younger-skewing audience, and often ones with only moderate reviews from critics. Neither of those factors are at play with this movie. United Artists report that it received an A- from CinemaScore and an 84% rating from critics on Rotten Tomatoes, and that 57% of the audience is over 35. The male/female split is more in line with fan-propelled films though, with 64% of the audience being male.
Interestingly, United Artists also estimates that 25% of the audience were coming to see a film for the first time during the pandemic. This ties in to the older demographic profile, since older moviegoers have been more reluctant to come out so far, and it might be good news for the market more generally, assuming that many of the people who came back this weekend will now feel comfortable enough to see more films in theaters in the future. For this weekend, it tells us that fanboys can be in their 40s too.
The broader market picture is slightly disappointing this weekend, with the top eight set to earn 15% less than last weekend. That drop, which amounts to about $13 million, is largely attributable to the solid-but-not-spectacular performance of No Time to Die and a 64% second-week drop for Venom: Let There Be Carnage. Given that both of those films landed almost exactly in line with what the model expected as of Thursday evening, the result isn’t much of a surprise though. In fact, The Addams Family 2 is providing a useful boost to the market with a second weekend just over $10 million. That’s 35% above what the model predicted.
No Time to Die continues to dominate internationally, with $89.5 million in total this weekend for a total of $257.269 million outside North America, and $313.276 worldwide to date. Its biggest opening this weekend is $10.1 million in France, and it’ll land in second place in Russia (just behind Venom) with $5 million. It continues to do fantastic business in its native United Kingdom, with $20.5 million this weekend taking it to $70.9 million in total so far.
The other leading markets for No Time to Die so far are Germany, with $32.7 million in total after a very solid $11.95 million in its second weekend; Japan, with $12.221 million; the Netherlands at $8.519 million; Korea, with $7.958 million; Italy, with $5.733 million; and Switzerland, with $5.653 million. It’ll open in China on October 29, and in Australia on November 11.
Dune will earn another $8.8 million this weekend for $117.1 million internationally to date. Its top markets are France, with $24.2 million to date, including $2.3 million this weekend; Russia, with $19.4 million; Germany, with $15.7 million; Spain, with $7.9 million; and Italy, with $7.6 million. Its Japanese release is coming up next weekend, and it’ll debut in North America the weekend after that.
Venom will earn a projected $24.8 million internationally in 13 markets this weekend for an overseas total of $43.9 million and global haul of $185.6 million so far. It has now earned $23.9 million in Russia, and held off a strong challenge from No Time to Die to remain top there. Sony is delighted with its performance in Latin America with opening weekends of $10.5 million in Mexico, $2.7 million in Brazil, and $1.0 million in Argentina (Sony’s best ever opening weekend in that country). It will roll out in South Korea, Italy, the United Kingdom, and Spain next weekend.
Bruce Nash, bruce.nash@the-numbers.com
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International numbers
Filed under: Weekend Estimates, Dune, No Time to Die, Venom: Let There be Carnage, The Addams Family 2