Wall Street Journal on 007’s ‘moral victory’

SPECTRE teaser poster

It turns out this blog wasn’t the only outlet interested in SPECTRE’s long and slow march to the $200 million box office mark in the U.S. and Canada.

The Wall Street Journal on March 21 posted a story titled “James Bond and the $200 Million Moral Victory.”

The 24th James Bond movie hit the $200 million mark for the region this past weekend, more than a month after it became available on home video and after it had been in release for more than 130 days. Skyfall, the 23rd 007 film, was in release in the region for 108 days. By the March 18-20 weekend, it was in just nine theaters.

Here are some excerpts from the Journal story:

Paul Dergarabedian, box-office analyst at comScore Inc., says while the biggest movie can now gross $200 million for just the opening weekend — “Jurassic World” and “Star Wars: The Force Awakens” did that last year — the figure is still “an important milestone” to reach for a film’s entire run. “Even the $100 million benchmark matters. No matter how much box-office inflation there is, these are important levels.”

To compare, “Skyfall” broke $200 million in North American grosses on its 15th day of release in 2012.

(snip)

Perhaps helping get the movie over the hump was the film recently moving into some discount theaters. Such viewing is “a great opportunity” for those not having seen a particular film on the big screen or looking to do so again before that channel closes, says Dergarabedian.

Overall, Skyfall generated $304.4 million in U.S.-Canada box office. The North American results were a key reason why SPECTRE’s global box office ($880.6 million) fell short of Skyfall’s ($1.1 billion).