United Artist Releasing/MGM/Eon’s No Time to Die clocked $6.3M from Thursday previews which began at 4PM, making it the best Bond domestic preview number ever, 19% ahead of Spectre‘s $5.25M six years ago.
The figure also exceeds the preview nights of previous 007 Daniel Craig movies Skyfall ($4.6M off midnight shows) and Quantum of Solace ($2.5M off 8PM showtimes0.
While No Time to Die‘s number is lower than last Thursday’s $11.6M charted by Venom: Let There Be Carnage; the second best preview night during the pandemic after Black Widow‘s $13.2M, note that Venom skewed more broadly with Hispanic and Latino audiences and younger. Bond is dependent on older adult audiences, and should they show up this weekend, than the pic will overindex. Spectre saw an audience that was 29% over 45 and 15% over 55. As we previously reported, NRG has observed that the Covid comfort levels for the older moviegoing demo have improved.
Conservative estimates for No Time to Die, which was delayed 19 months due to Covid, are in the $55M-$60M-range in U.S./Canada; $150M WW for its second global weekend. Anything higher relies on a significant amount of walk-up business, however, the pic’s advance ticket sales on Fandango are already the best for Bond and ahead of Venom: Let There Be Carnage. The domestic openings for previous 007 Craig titles are Skyfall (the franchise record at $88.3M), Spectre ($70.4M), Quantum of Solace ($67.5M) and Casino Royale ($40.8M).
Overseas box office for No Time to Die to date is estimated to be north of $150M via a majority of Universal, and a handful of MGM territories.
As we reported yesterday, the 25th Bond’s delayed brand promo campaign which includes Aston Martin, Chopard, Triumph motorcycles and more is delivering $150M in cross-ad value. That doesn’t include global P&A spend.
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