Bond Crushes Peanuts at the box office

Bond Crushes Peanuts at the box office





To no one's surprise, the latest James Bond film SPECTRE had a huge opening taking the #1 spot and breathing healthy life back to a moribund movie business which saw in this past October the lowest grosses and more bombs in row than in any previous years. The newest 007 entry grossed a hefty $73 million, making it the second best opening in the franchise. It did came short of Skyfall opening of $88.4 million mainly by the not so great reviews it received plus the fact the when 'Skyfall' debuted, no other new movie was competing with it, while 'Spectre' saw a good chunk of families opting for The Peanuts Movie which came in second place with a solid $45 million.

The rest of the films in the top six are exactly the same ones from the last four or five weeks in the same order, but pushed two notches down due to the two new big winners:
#3 The Martian $9.3 million and will be crossing the $200 million by Wednesday.
#4 Goosebumps $6.9 million for a current $66.4 million in four weeks. On a side note this film is not doing so well outside USA as it has grossed only $25 million internationally.
#5 Bridge of Spies $6 million
#6 Hotel Transylvania 2 $3.5 million for a seven weeks total of $161 million. The sequel crossed the $400 million mark and has been more successful than the first film. Expect a third part in a couple of years.

All of last week's bombs exited the 10 ten list, except for the one that had already debuted in the 12 spot and now has plunged farther away to the #17 spot.

 

In its second weekend Spectre took again the #1 spot with $35.4 million for a domestic total of $130 million and worldwide $548 million. The Peanuts movie came again #2 with $24.2 million for a domestic total of $82 million. The film continues doing poorly in the foreign market and has grossed only $8.1 million half of which came from China after two weeks. Historically Peanuts has been deemed as too 'American' and is not as popular abroad than lets say "Garfield".

Love The Coopers debuted in the third place with $8.4 million. The Martian added $6.7 million to its bank for $207 million in 7 weeks and a worldwide gross so far of $477 million. Expect the inevitable sequel ("The Martian Too": reverse roles with Jessica Chastain getting stranded in Mars while NASA recruits retired astronauts heroes Matt Damon & Sandra Bullock to lead the rescue mission that might or might not be put in jeopardy after getting hit by a small meteor!).

Debuting in the fifth spot is the Chilean mine drama The 33 with a not so dramatic $5.8 million. The Antonio Banderas starrer had some rotten reviews by critics, but audiences loved it giving it an 'A' Cinemascore rating. Maybe word of mouth could help this film, but recently Studios are doing the unthinkable of pulling out films from theaters after just two weeks of bad performance (Jem & The Holograms, Our Brand is Crisis). Not saying this will happen to this film, but even 'Steve Jobs' will be pulled out after this week and 'Pan' is nowhere to be found in the top 50 list which means it was quietly pulled out. It makes financial sense for movie chains and studios to open more screens for 'Spectre' than to have empty screens for a turkey that didn't connect with audiences.

Notable new releases: Bollywood film Prem Ratan Dhem Payo debuted in the #8 spot with $2.4 million which is another first for an Indian film. This one has been a huge success in Asia (by their standarts) grossing so far and counting $33 million worldwide in its first weekend! The Brangelina divorce drama By The Sea got trashed by critics and apparently audiences listened: it debuted in only 10 screens, but even in those it has bombed. The studio plans to release it to more screens and give it more publicity to see if audiences can forget the 31% rotten reviews and give it a second chance (I can see it in my mind the misleading publicity ads 'you loved them in Mr & Mrs Smith and now they are back!' ::).