333 replies to this topic

[SecretAgentFan]

I wonder, however: if having an Adele hit song persuades people to watch a Bond film (which they would usually not do) - does that mean they did not like SKYFALL and therefore did not want to watch SPECTRE?

 

IMO, having an Adele hit song or any hit song at all, cannot be the deciding factor for someone to watch a Bond film.  Or any film.  (Hey, I love the song, I have to watch the movie?)

 

Additional publicity?  Yep, definitely.  But in 2012, Bond was everywhere.   

 

Also, quite frankly, there were many people who do not like Adele or the song.  

 

In the end, SKYFALL was received very well by the audience and the critics, and it hit theatres at a perfect time.  Kind of like perfect timing worked in favor of THUNDERBALL or THE SPY WHO LOVED ME.

 

SPECTRE did not have that advantage.  Even if it had been a fantastic film I suspect it would always have been perceived by the non-fans as "the follow-up to SKYFALL".

 

Maybe it´s good to have that out of the way now.

[Gobi-1]

It's not that the song itself brought people to see Skyfall, but it provided a lot of free advertising on the radio for Skyfall.  The song was wildly popular (somehow) and was played frequently on the radio, giving the film more exposure.  It helped drum up a lot of talk about Skyfall from those that otherwise might not have been aware or had much interest in the Bond franchise.

 

Exactly. 

[Hockey Mask]

U.S. Box Office thru Twelfth Weekend
01. $304,360,277 Skyfall
02. $199,270,327 SPECTRE
03. $168,368,427 Quantum of Solace
04. $167,445,960 Casino Royale
05. $160,942,139 Die Another Day
06. $126,943,684 The World is Not Enough
07. $125,304,276 Tomorrow Never Dies
08. $106,429,941 GoldenEye
09. $ 70,308,099 Moonraker
10. $ 67,893,619 Octopussy
11. $ 63,595,658 Thunderball
12. $ 55,432,841 Never Say Never Again
13. $ 54,812,802 For Your Eyes Only
14. $ 51,185,897 The Living Daylights
15. $ 51,081,062 Goldfinger
16. $ 50,327,960 A View to a Kill
17. $ 46,838,673 The Spy Who Loved Me
18. $ 43,819,547 Diamonds Are Forever
19. $ 43,084,787 You Only Live Twice
20. $ 35,377,836 Live and Let Die
21. $ 34,667,015 License to Kill
22. $ 24,796,765 From Russia, with Love
23. $ 22,774,493 On Her Majesty's Secret Service
24. $ 20,972,000 The Man with the Golden Gun
25. $ 16,067,035 Dr. No

U.S. Box Office - Adjusted Inflation thru the Twelfth Weekend
01. $650,760,000 Thunderball
02. $576,810,000 Goldfinger
03. $329,225,400 Skyfall
04. $312,364,700 You Only Live Twice
05. $243,697,400 Moonraker
06. $239,981,100 Die Another Day
07. $234,127,300 Tomorrow Never Dies
08. $231,969,700 From Russia, with Love
09. $231,048,500 Diamonds Are Forever
10. $221,229,500 Casino Royale
11. $216,228,100 The World is Not Enough
12. $212,314,300 GoldenEye
13. $204,011,900 Quantum of Solace
14. $199,270,300 SPECTRE
15. $187,515,700 Octopussy
16. $182,733,800 The Spy Who Loved Me
17. $173,891,100 Live and Let Die
18. $171,536,500 For Your Eyes Only
19. $164,450,800 Dr. No
20. $153,100,200 Never Say Never Again
21. $139,533,900 On Her Majesty's Secret Service
22. $123,338,900 A View to a Kill
23. $113,891,900 The Living Daylights
24. $ 97,570,300 The Man with the Golden Gun
25. $ 75,970,500 License to Kill

[Guy Haines]

I've made this comment before but I'll do it again - Skyfall drew in a lot of people who wouldn't ordinarily go and see a Bond film simply for the novelty of a renowned director being at its helm. They took a risk with Sam Mendes - not known for his action movies at that point - and it paid off handsomely. There was no risk this time because the potential audience knew what to expect - but by the same token those unimpressed with Mendes as director knew as well and a few may have stayed away.

The "classic" elements which the fan loves may also have proved a double edged sword. To the casual film goer who isn't much vexed about whether the gunbarrel goes at the start or the end a film like SPECTRE might seem to be "just another Bond film" if it had those elements in it we as fans expected and had seen before - as indeed had the casual filmgoer. Skyfall got good reviews and I dare say good word of mouth because it was well directed and acted and deviated a bit from the traditional norms - there was less of the "seen it all before" about it.

Three bits of anecdotal evidence to finish. My relative who said that "Skyfall is a great film but not a great Bond film" - he was making a distinction. My friend who likes the Bond books - and usually only the books - but who enjoyed Skyfall, despite it having very little original Fleming source material, because it wasn't a "typical" Bond film. And my acquaintance who has the same first name as Bond's wife, who enjoyed both Skyfall and SPECTRE, but thought the latter's ending let it down.

And even though in box office numbers it may have fallen short of Skyfall, the fact is that SPECTRE has done extremely well generally given how high the bar was set from 2012 onwards.

[blueman]

Guy, you seem to nail it.  Perhaps EON could've topped SF box office by making an even more non-Bondian Bond film?  SP looks to be have done expected Bond type box office.

[Hockey Mask]

U.S. Box Office thru 13th Weekend
01. $304,360,277 Skyfall
02. $199,468,065 SPECTRE
03. $168,368,427 Quantum of Solace
04. $167,445,960 Casino Royale
05. $160,942,139 Die Another Day
06. $126,943,684 The World is Not Enough
07. $125,304,276 Tomorrow Never Dies
08. $106,429,941 GoldenEye
09. $ 70,308,099 Moonraker
10. $ 67,893,619 Octopussy
11. $ 63,595,658 Thunderball
12. $ 55,432,841 Never Say Never Again
13. $ 54,812,802 For Your Eyes Only
14. $ 51,185,897 The Living Daylights
15. $ 51,081,062 Goldfinger
16. $ 50,327,960 A View to a Kill
17. $ 46,838,673 The Spy Who Loved Me
18. $ 43,819,547 Diamonds Are Forever
19. $ 43,084,787 You Only Live Twice
20. $ 35,377,836 Live and Let Die
21. $ 34,667,015 License to Kill
22. $ 24,796,765 From Russia, with Love
23. $ 22,774,493 On Her Majesty's Secret Service
24. $ 20,972,000 The Man with the Golden Gun
25. $ 16,067,035 Dr. No

U.S. Box Office - Adjusted Inflation thru the 13th Weekend
01. $650,760,000 Thunderball
02. $576,810,000 Goldfinger
03. $329,225,400 Skyfall
04. $312,364,700 You Only Live Twice
05. $243,697,400 Moonraker
06. $239,981,100 Die Another Day
07. $234,127,300 Tomorrow Never Dies
08. $231,969,700 From Russia, with Love
09. $231,048,500 Diamonds Are Forever
10. $221,229,500 Casino Royale
11. $216,228,100 The World is Not Enough
12. $212,314,300 GoldenEye
13. $204,011,900 Quantum of Solace
14. $199,468,065 SPECTRE
15. $187,515,700 Octopussy
16. $182,733,800 The Spy Who Loved Me
17. $173,891,100 Live and Let Die
18. $171,536,500 For Your Eyes Only
19. $164,450,800 Dr. No
20. $153,100,200 Never Say Never Again
21. $139,533,900 On Her Majesty's Secret Service
22. $123,338,900 A View to a Kill
23. $113,891,900 The Living Daylights
24. $ 97,570,300 The Man with the Golden Gun
25. $ 75,970,500 License to Kill

[glidrose]

U.S. Box Office thru 13th Weekend
01. $304,360,277 Skyfall
02. $199,468,065 SPECTRE

Actually, box office thru 13th weekend is actually

Jan 29–Feb 4 $199,524,144

Interestingly enough, QOS only made it to week 11 in the US domestic market before leaving theatres.

Spectre foreign total as of 1/31/2016 is $678,343,050

Worldwide is $877,892,194

[rubixcub]

Now up to $879M worldwide.  U.S. box office has been at $199M+ for three weeks, currently at $199.6M and making less than $10K/day.  So close to $200M, and yet so far. :(

 

Dave

[SecretAgentFan]

With the DVD/blu ray-release imminent the strictly cinema-box office-lifespan for SPECTRE is coming to an end.

 

Definitely no slouch and no flop.  Overseas it has brought in loads of money.  Almost 200 million in the US is not bad either.  Still, one wonders why it is 100 million dollars behind SKYFALL over there.  It can´t be due to the Olympics.  Or Adele.

 

And since the US reviews were especially bad - were Americans just not tuned into Bond anymore?

[Professor Pi]

Star Wars TFA pretty much forced it out of many theaters early.  And quite frankly, it wasn't as good as most of its predecessors.

[SecretAgentFan]

I don´t think that TFA was responsible - when that film was released around the world (except China) SPECTRE had already brought in enough money to break records.

 

For some reason, the "underperforming" was a failure to bring in those who pushed SKYFALL over 300 million dollars: probably return customers and people who don´t have to see a Bond film in the cinema.

 

The discussion of the moneylenders will revolve around this question: is there a ceiling for Bond films that can not be broken through?  Can a Bond film only reach 300 million dollars domestic (US) if all things align once in a lifetime?

 

I know that for STAR TREK this discussion led to the hiring of Justin Lin who was targeted to make that franchise more action-oriented and youth-friendly.

[Professor Pi]

Take away Skyfall, and SPECTRE continued the predicted box office growth of a Bond film.  Skyfall is the outlier, not SPECTRE.  Still, I doubt they'll budget the next Bond movie at $250M-$300M. 

 

As for Star Trek, I love that franchise but ... I don't think it can ever be mega popular like Star Wars, FF and Bond.  It will always have a profitable fan base, but will probably never expand beyond that.

[SecretAgentFan]

That´s probably true - but not what the suits want to acknowledge.  Like every bean counter they are only interested in growth.  

 

And SKYFALL will always be considered as the one that proved it can be done.

[mummyboy11]

I think some "collateral" stuff happened that didn't work out well for Spectre. I think it was briefly after Spectre's release that the terrorist attack in Paris happened. It's must have made a dent in the box-office outcome regarding audiences in France becuse of all the repercussions it had on everybody at the time. understandably, of course. 

Still...not an excuse but I think all of this mixed together - with main song likes and dislikes; weaker advertisement than Skyfall; and much more - gives us these numbers. 

But has Daniel already said about the worries of trying to top Skyfall, "It's kind of a good problem to have!"

[SecretAgentFan]

The French box-office did not dip at all - Europeans loved SPECTRE.

 

It is mainly the US box-office that did not surpass SKYFALL.

[RMc2]

But the British box office did perform worse than expectred - and I think it's for the same reasons as in the US.

 

It's largely down to the double-whammy of Star Wars stealing most of its screens (especially IMAX) after just a month in release, and The Hunger Games tapping into a similar audience in late November.

 

The cooler reviews didn't help.

[SecretAgentFan]

According to Box Office Mojo SKYFALL did around 161 million in the UK while SPECTRE has earned around 138 million.  Not as big a difference as the 100 million dollars between the US and the UK revenues for SKYFALL.

 

I don´t know whether it´s due to Star Wars stealing the screens.  By that time SPECTRE was around for six weeks, making most of its money (as any film does) in its first three weeks.

 

By the way: SKYFALL had the last TWILIGHT film and the first HOBBIT taking away its screens earlier.

[Dustin]

May simply be the - relative - lack of positive word-of-mouth that's responsible for the box office in the UK. Less people rave about the film, less people going to see it several times.

In the US there may come something else into the equation. Bond is perceived there as European, an entertainment that's ever so vaguely 'foreign' and not entirely a Hollywood production (when was the last time the US of A figured prominently/positively in a Bond film?).

That may not always be a bad thing, every once in a while a little exoticism from Old Blighty is very welcome. But there are ups and downs for this kind of cultural fad and it may just be that US audiences this season favoured their own brand a little more; especially when the reviews came in rather lukewarm to the film. Does that explain a whopping $ 100 million less in the US? Other factors surely came into play on top of this, but overall I think this is at the core of it.

[tdalton]

I think it, quite simply, didn't have the perfect storm at its back that Skyfall did.  While some of the periphery elements that many like to discount as not having had an effect on the film may not add up to much individually, collectively they had some impact.  

 

No Olympics, no Adele, no 50th Anniversary.  Say what you want about those elements, but they created a sense of goodwill towards both Skyfall and the franchise in general in the leadup to the film's release.  

 

On the flipside, Spectre pretty much debuted to the public via the Sony hacks, an all around negative event that just got things off on the wrong foot.  While Skyfall had all of those very positive things go for it from the get go, Spectre got kicked off by the hacks and then had much more negative press in the leadup than Skyfall, most notably the "wrist slashing" interview that the media has rightly clung to.

 

Now, none of those things in an of themselves are reasons that Skyfall did $300 million in the US and Spectre came up just short of $200 million.  But, the goodwill that Skyfall had created for it before its release got more eyes on it and more people willing to buy into the event nature of the film that those elements helped to provide it.  When it turned out to be a good film, there were more people in the seats to see it and then, most importantly, more people returning.  By contrast, not as many were excited about Spectre upon its release (there was nowhere near the interest in Spectre from the get go as there was for Skyfall), in part because of the negativity leading up to it, and then when it didn't turn out to be as good as Skyfall, fewer people were already in there in the initial weekends and, as a result, fewer returned for multiple viewings.  

[Hockey Mask]

I think it, quite simply, didn't have the perfect storm at its back that Skyfall did.  While some of the periphery elements that many like to discount as not having had an effect on the film may not add up to much individually, collectively they had some impact.  
 
No Olympics, no Adele, no 50th Anniversary.  Say what you want about those elements, but they created a sense of goodwill towards both Skyfall and the franchise in general in the leadup to the film's release.  
 
On the flipside, Spectre pretty much debuted to the public via the Sony hacks, an all around negative event that just got things off on the wrong foot.  While Skyfall had all of those very positive things go for it from the get go, Spectre got kicked off by the hacks and then had much more negative press in the leadup than Skyfall, most notably the "wrist slashing" interview that the media has rightly clung to.
 
Now, none of those things in an of themselves are reasons that Skyfall did $300 million in the US and Spectre came up just short of $200 million.  But, the goodwill that Skyfall had created for it before its release got more eyes on it and more people willing to buy into the event nature of the film that those elements helped to provide it.  When it turned out to be a good film, there were more people in the seats to see it and then, most importantly, more people returning.  By contrast, not as many were excited about Spectre upon its release (there was nowhere near the interest in Spectre from the get go as there was for Skyfall), in part because of the negativity leading up to it, and then when it didn't turn out to be as good as Skyfall, fewer people were already in there in the initial weekends and, as a result, fewer returned for multiple viewings.

This!

[Dustin]

Sounds about right to me.

I wonder how SPECTRE might have been received without the leaks? If they hadn't denied the presence of Blofeld? We would have known nothing of the script's issues, we would have guessed who's going to be Blofeld. And what the 'twist' is the first reviewers hinted at. All the speculation we've seen here in SPECTRE's off-spoilers section would have been common practice. It wouldn't have been a huge concern for the wider public (and that 'surprise' of it would still have fallen flat on its face.) But at least for a short time the thing would have arrived as intended.

[SecretAgentFan]

Absolutely.  I do not understand why they name a film "SPECTRE" and then desperately cling to a "secret" about Blofeld being part of that film.  

 

For me, "Star Trek Into Darkness" did not need the "Khan"-secret either - but at least it was a surprise for me because the story up to that revelation did not contain anything that related to the original "Khan"-storyline.  After the bad reception of that secret, Mendes should have come right out and said: Yes, we have Spectre and we´re happy to have Christoph Waltz as Blofeld.

 

One might, of course, ask: why do we even debate the box office results?  They are no indicator of quality or personal preference.

 

Yet, they are an indicator for the possible changes that will occur in future installments.  Right now, I would say that "SPECTRE" will be considered as a nice success, bought, however, with a ridiculously escalating budget and fueled by not enough creative ideas to sustain another installment in the same way.  In short:  EON is in a similar position as it was with "DAD".

[RMc2]

Good point, SAF. The positive outcomes of SP's box office?

 

International gross = Bond 25 is absolutely a given, and Craig is still bankable.

 

U.S. = the budget for the next one will be significantly smaller, hopefully resulting in an emphasis on the plot.

P.S.

 

I do wish they'd kept Oberhauser as the villain, and Blofeld were someone else, revealed at the end... Either that or reveal Waltz as Blofeld at the beginning, and make the 'twist' revelation the fact that he's also Oberhauser. But that would require a different McGuffin to tie into Bond's upbringing. Nazi gold, for instance...

[Guy Haines]

Good point, SAF. The positive outcomes of SP's box office?
 
International gross = Bond 25 is absolutely a given, and Craig is still bankable.
 
U.S. = the budget for the next one will be significantly smaller, hopefully resulting in an emphasis on the plot.
P.S.
 
I do wish they'd kept Oberhauser as the villain, and Blofeld were someone else, revealed at the end... Either that or reveal Waltz as Blofeld at the beginning, and make the 'twist' revelation the fact that he's also Oberhauser. But that would require a different McGuffin to tie into Bond's upbringing. Nazi gold, for instance...

I think the "Nazi gold" may emerge in Bond 25 as the real reason young Franz had to change his name after faking his death and causing his father's. He coveted that cache of gold his dad knew about, and used it to establish himself in big time crime and SPECTRE. As a reason for setting the organisation up, I think it makes more sense than going into master criminality just to get back at Bond.

[tdalton]

Perhaps another factor that hasn't gotten as much play with regards to Skyfall's success is that it was coming off the four year hiatus, during which a lot of media outlets were speculating as to the future of the Bond franchise and whether or not it may be over thanks to MGM's dire financial situation.  Take that, combine it with the other previously discussed elements, and you've got yourself a ready-made event film.  

[Gobi-1]

Perhaps another factor that hasn't gotten as much play with regards to Skyfall's success is that it was coming off the four year hiatus, during which a lot of media outlets were speculating as to the future of the Bond franchise and whether or not it may be over thanks to MGM's dire financial situation.  Take that, combine it with the other previously discussed elements, and you've got yourself a ready-made event film.  

 

Absence does indeed make the heart grow fonder.

[SecretAgentFan]

Well, these days in the pop culture business absence makes people forget very quickly.  

 

And I believe that the media would start the "too old"-chorus and the "Roger Moore"-jokes if Craig were to appear as Bond in three or four years.

[RMc2]

But would Babs & Michael let negative press about Craig dissuade them from using him? History says no...

Edited by RMc2, 17 February 2016 - 11:22 AM.

[SecretAgentFan]

History says yes if it impacts the future of the franchise.  Otherwise Dalton would have gotten a third film.

[RMc2]

I thought Dalton retired when his third film was in development hell for too long?