The 25th installment of in the James Bond franchise, No Time To Die, has opened to huge box office numbers with its premiere in the United Kingdom.
No Time To Die has landed in the U.K, premiering at the famed Royal Albert Hall in London on Thursday, it boasted an impressive $6.6 million opening day at the box office, putting sales 14 percent ahead of 2015’s Spectre. However, despite the impressive numbers, it remained 26 percent behind Skyfall‘s opening day in 2012. It is worth noting that Skyfall debuted on a Friday, unlike Spectre‘s Monday premiere. Universal Studios also reported that 1,620,000 advance tickets were sold for the movie, surpassing Spectre’s numbers once again, this time by 12 percent, and equalling the number sold for Skyfall.
Current projections suggest No Time To Die should handily surpass $26 million by the end of its opening weekend in the U.K which would easily make it the country’s highest-grossing box office release since the start of the COVD-19 pandemic. Bond’s latest outing is also being predicted to earn up to $100 million worldwide by Sunday.
The major box office numbers come as a positive sign for the film industry after the pandemic caused a significant decrease in moviegoers being able to visit the cinema. This has affected the industry to the point that major companies have taken action, including Disney which has simultaneously released some of its biggest productions in cinemas and on the premier access version of its online streaming platform Disney+. Founder and CEO of Vue International Cinema’s Tim Richards, spoke about the impact the pandemic has had on cinema’s ahead of the No Time To Die’s premiere, referring to the release as a “watershed moment” and going on to say “This is the time when we actually get back to business, to pre-COVID levels of business.”
Craig also spoke of the cinematic release ahead of the premiere of his Bond swansong, calling it a “joyous thing” and going on to state, “It would have been sad to see it on a streaming service, and we got here and we’re going to actually get into the cinema.”
No Time To Die has already premiered in over 50 countries across the world, including South Korea, Denmark, and Germany with each market reportedly earning over $1 million at the box office. The film will continue to release all over the globe in the coming weeks and is set to release in North America next weekend, on Oct. 8.
Source: The Hollywood Reporter
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