“Do I look like I give a damn?” Blofeld asked.
As the Year of the Spy winds down, there’s a little bit of drama, such as it is. Will SPECTRE or Mission: Impossible Rogue Nation be the No. 1 spy movie in the U.S. and Canada?
At the start of the year, the answer would have been a slam dunk — SPECTRE, the 24th James Bond film was the heavy favorite. It was the followup to Skyfall, the No. 2 movie in the world in 2012 and the No. 4 for the U.S. and Canada.
However, that was before Paramount moved Mission: Impossible Rogue Nation from Dec. 25, Christmas Day, to July 31.
That move got the fifth Tom Cruise M:I movie out of harm’s way from Star Wars: The Force Awakens, due out Dec. 18. The M:I film became a summer hit and took away the spy audience from The Man From U.N.C.L.E. movie that came out two weeks later.
To be clear, SPECTRE already is the global spy movie champ ($792.6 million so far versus M:I Rogue Nation’s $682.3 million). But SPECTRE isn’t doing the same business as Skyfall globally and it’s significantly behind the pace of Skyfall in the U.S. and Canada. The region contributed $304.4 million of Skyfall’s $1.11 billion box office.
As of today, it’s still an open question whether M:I Rogue Nation’s $195 million in the U.S. and Canada will hold up as the top spy film in the U.S. and Canada. SPECTRE’s box office in the take totaled $185.1 million through Dec. 7.
Agent 007, of course, still is in theaters. Daniel Craig’s Bond is certainly within striking distance of Cruise’s Ethan HUnt.
Still, as time goes on, SPECTRE is being shown on fewer screens. Its first weekend, Nov. 6-8, SPECTRE was on 3.929 screens, according to BOX OFFICE MOJO. That was down to 2,840 for the Dec. 4-6 weeekend.
The guess here is that SPECTRE will eke out the U.S.-Canada win. It has one more weekend (Dec. 11-13) before Star Wars: The Force Awakens sucks up screens (and ticket sales).
Still, the race shapes up to be considerably closer than what was expected at the start of 2015.
Filed under: James Bond Books, The Other Spies | Tagged: Box Office Mojo, Mission: Impossible Rogue Nation, Skyfall, SPECTRE, Star Wars: The Force Awakens, Tom Cruise |
The Spy Command 
Despite a low revenue, MFU is ranked among the Top 10 Best Movies by Time Magazine. http://time.com/4134913/top-10-best-movies/
Why does it matter? Box office results is not a measure of a film’s real quality, since opinions are subjective.
I think SPECTRE suffers from the Bond malady that the follow-up to a commercial smash has to be “bigger and better” than what came before. It rarely is. Hence the inevitable regeneration. As people who love the films we sometimes forget that they are above all commerical products with an imperative to make money.
However you slice it, it was a GREAT year for quality spy films this year.