Spectre has officially dominated the James Bond franchise, earning nearly $200 million globally just this past weekend. After pretty much setting new box office records in every country it has opened in, the flick has pulled in $300M in less than two weeks. The movie has yet to debut in France, Australia, South Korea, Japan and China yet, so $200M is sure to rise dramatically over the next couple weeks. Not too shabby for the franchise’s 24th 007 film.
Prior to its release, there were plenty of predictions that the film would have a lower turnout due to various factors—like last year’s Sony hack revealing most of the plot and Daniel Craig’s less-than-positive commentary on Bond being an obvious misogynist (which led to a flurry of future Bond casting predictions that don’t really matter since Craig is contracted for one more). Plus, early reviews complained that the film lacks the grittiness of its predecessors and is too chipper. Personally, I still enjoyed it and rank it in third place out of Craig’s four turns as 007. Third isn’t too bad considering Casino Royale and Skyfall are pretty much perfect.
In the end, all it takes to get people in the theater is the simple fact that another Bond movie is finally out.
