The finale of the Daniel Craig-helmed James Bond saga, “No Time to Die” opened at No. 11 at the box office this past weekend, grossing just over $56 million. I severely overestimated the opening of this film, as I predicted a gross slightly below $100 million.
Coming off the raucous premiere of “Venom: Let There Be Carnage” two weeks ago, which opened over $90 million, I thought the Bond finale could possibly match that number, especially because the movie had been overperforming internationally, where it opened the previous weekend. Ultimately, Bond as a franchise has always been more successful internationally than domestically, so I shouldn’t have expected such a high gross. With its international success, “No Time to Die” has cleared $300 million worldwide, and we could still see it reach a fairly high total domestically as well.
In second place this weekend is last week’s leader, “Venom: Let There Be Carnage.” Unfortunately for “Venom,” it took a bit of a dive this week, dropping 64% to gross around $32 million. Though the overperforming opening weekend certainly factored into this large drop, this must temper our expectations for its final domestic total. While a $220 million total was in play last weekend, now I think “Venom: Let There Be Carnage” will only reach $210 million at the domestic box office.
Coming in third place this past weekend is the animated film “The Addams Family 2.” This film employed a dual release strategy of premiering in theaters and on video-on-demand simultaneously. This has not seemed to hamper its box office progress, as the film grossed another $10 million this weekend. If the film can continue to put together sub-50% holds, we could see it gross around $50-60 million domestically, a success for a relatively inexpensive animated film.
In fourth and fifth place this weekend are domestic box-office champion “Shang-Chi and the Legend of the Ten Rings” and box-office failure “The Many Saints of Newark,” respectively. The Marvel superhero flick grossed about $4.2 million this weekend, while the prequel mobster film grossed just south of $1.5 million. “Shang-Chi” creeps ever closer to $220 million with its gross this weekend, while “The Many Saints of Newark” is struggling to get to $10 million domestically. Truly, this is a tale of two stories at the box office.
Next weekend comes the wide release of two new films domestically, “Halloween Kills” and “The Last Duel.”
“Halloween Kills” is the sequel to 2018’s “Halloween,” which in itself is a reboot of 1978’s “Halloween.” The 2018 film grossed over $255 million worldwide, including about $160 million domestically. Though I don’t expect this film to gross a total that large, I think a debut in the range of $40-50 million is certainly in play.
The second film premiering this weekend is Ridley Scott’s “The Last Duel.” The film boasts an impressive cast, starring Matt Damon, Adam Driver, Jodie Comer and Ben Affleck. The period piece setting and the dramatic nature of the film should make us temper our box office expectations for this film, thus I only expect an opening between $7-10 million.
All that being said, nothing is definite until next Monday. There will be winners and there will be losers, but that is life at the box office.
