Refresh for latest…: MGM/Eon/Universal’s highly-anticipated No Time To Die has clocked an estimated $6.2M-$6.8M (£4.5M-£5M) in the UK on its opening day today. Daniel Craig’s final turn as legendary secret agent 007 came in about 13% above Spectre (Monday opening) and just 26% below Skyfall (Friday opening). The Cary Joji Fukunaga-directed pic is enjoying the widest theatrical release of all time in the market with 772 cinemas playing the film amid buzz and excitement aplenty.
More than 30,000 people attended midnight screenings in the UK and Ireland on Wednesday night. No Time To Die sold a spectacular 1.62M advance tickets for the opening four days, surpassing Spectre’s total advance bookings by over 12% and performing in line with Skyfall at the same time pre-release.
The 25th James Bond movie began international box office rollout on Wednesday in Korea, and added the UK today along with majors Germany, Brazil and Italy — we will have updated figures from those markets tomorrow, when Japan, Mexico and Spain also officially start their engines. In total, over 50 offshore markets are going this frame; domestic and further overseas hubs open next weekend and China is dated October 29.
After several pandemic-induced release date changes, audiences are saying, “Mr Bond, we’ve been expecting you.” The UK in particular has been all aflutter with excitement. A lavish, jam-packed and royally-attended world premiere was held at London’s Royal Albert Hall on Tuesday night while Vue held an invite-only screening at its Leicester Square venue on Wednesday evening. The film set the record for highest advance sales of all time for the Everyman, Picturehouse and Curzon circuits.
The UK naturally is Bond’s strongest performer and set a series of records on Spectre, which had a seven-day opening including previews; the No Time To Die rollout is different in that it began on a Thursday.
Elsewhere, Korea launched with afternoon shows on Wednesday, grossing a strong $665K from 2,167 screens, by far the widest release of the franchise. Thursday added another $590K for a total of $1.35M so far, and more than 60% of the market.
Mexico‘s first preview day came in at No. 1 with $300K from 2,625 screens. No Time To Die achieved 64% market share, grossing almost 7x the second-placed film. Attendance was strong across the country.
While industry projections factored a roughly $90M opening frame for No Time To Die, some think the Aston Martin could speed past that number. As a reminder, in like-for-like markets at today’s exchange rates, 2015’s Spectre did $123.5M; 2012’s Skyfall came in at $109.2M; and, more recently, Universal’s latest Fast & Furious franchise entry F9 did $69.5M.
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