With the success of Shang-Chi in September and October opening strong with Venom 2, the box office continues to show signs of recovery – but that it still has a long way to go. No Time To Die was pushed back nearly a year from its original debut and it has now finally landed, bringing in $56 million in 4,407 locations in North America. With a solid build on the overseas so far where it opened, the film here didn’t do as strongly as the two Marvel films but there was no expectation that it would.
Bringing in $56 million is no slouch in the pandemic, but the Bond franchise hasn’t opened with low since Casino Royale in 2006 at $40.8 million. The subsequent films had opening weekends of $67.5, $88.3, and $70.4 million respectively before bringing us to today. The simple reality is that there are still a lot of film fans who are not going back to the theater, but that things are healing hopefully enough for there to be a bit more attempt at normality going forward. I’ve been to every Bond film in theaters since 1985’s A View to A Kill ($13.2 million opening weekend) but I did not go to No Time To Die, which feels incredibly weird. For a number of reasons, quite honestly, the pandemic has broken me from theatrical film going. And I say that as someone who had MoviePass from the time it started until the whole thing crashed and burned. I cannot count the huge number of movies I’ve seen in theaters. So I can imagine others having their own reasons for not wanting to go back yet.
According to The Numbers, “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 chart shows some good second-week life for others as Venom 2 added another $32 million on top of its weekday earnings to come in at $141.6 million domestic. Addams Family 2 even managed another $10 million to bring it to $31 million. After that, everything is under $1.5 million outside of Shang-Chi.
| # | Title | Distributor Name | Weekend Total | # of Locs | Loc Avg | Cume Total |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| 1 | No Time To Die | United Artists Releasing | $56,007,372 | 4,407 | $12,709 | $56,007,372 |
| 2 | Venom: Let There Be Carnage | Sony | $32,000,000 | 4,225 | $7,574 | $141,665,616 |
| 3 | Addams Family 2, The | United Artists Releasing | $10,019,040 | 4,207 | $2,382 | $31,140,891 |
| 4 | Shang-Chi and the Legend of the Ten Rings | Disney | $4,200,000 | 2,800 | $1,500 | $212,456,765 |
| 5 | Many Saints of Newark, The | Warner Bros. | $1,450,000 | 3,181 | $456 | $7,407,052 |
| 6 | Free Guy | 20th Century Studios | $1,300,000 | 1,495 | $870 | $119,681,287 |
| 7 | Lamb | A24 | $1,000,079 | 583 | $1,715 | $1,000,079 |
| 8 | Dear Evan Hansen | Universal | $1,000,000 | 1,927 | $519 | $13,706,130 |
| 9 | Candyman | Universal | $700,000 | 1,153 | $607 | $60,073,075 |
| 10 | Jungle Cruise | Disney | $214,000 | 445 | $481 | $116,546,419 |
| 11 | Paw Patrol | Paramount | $200,000 | 404 | $495 | $40,019,471 |
| 12 | Jesus Music, The | Lionsgate | $150,000 | 270 | $556 | $857,994 |
© Comscore 2021
