No Time to Die passes $600M in global box office

No Time to Die logo

No Time to Die has passed the $600 million global box office mark as the 25th James Bond movie nears the end of its worldwide rollout.

The movie’s global figure is now an estimated $605.8 million, according to Box Office Mojo. This weekend saw the Bond film debut in China.

In the U.S., No Time to Die’s fourth weekend was an estimated $7.8 million for Oct. 29-31. That was 36 percent below the Oct. 22-24 weekend. A decline weekend decline below 50 percent is considered a strong box office performance.

In the U.S., No Time has generated an estimated box office of $133.3 million. That’s not as popular as globally but nothing to sneeze at.

Context: Globally, No Time to Die is one of the most popular films of the COVID-19 pandemic era. The champ is F9: The Fast Saga at $721.1 million.

However, the pandemic has changed things. The champ for 2019 (the last year before the pandemic) was Avengers: Endgame at almost $2.8 billion.

Keep in mind: These figures are called grosses (as opposed to profits) for a reason. The studios split the money with theaters.

No Time to Die’s production budget approached $300 million. Metro-Goldwyn-Mayer spent millions of dollars beyond that in marketing.

Conclusion: It’s good news and bad news. Bond still is popular overall. It’s not so great for those who pay the bills. All concerned might want to be more budget-conscious for Bond 26.

RE-POST: The blog’s obit for Paul Baack from 2017

Paul Baack (1957-2017 ) in 2013, wearing headphones to utilize his voice-activated software.

Paul Baack, co-founder of Her Majesty’s Secret Servant, died four years ago today. I’m re-posting the obituary I published that day. 

Paul Baack, co-founder of the James Bond fan site Her Majesty’s Secret Servant, died today at 60.

Paul and Tom Zielinski began the site, intended as a James Bond “e-magazine,” in 1997. HMSS, according to the founders, was the equivalent of a “toy train” for them.

It was more, of course.

From 1997 until 2011, HMSS presented magazine-length articles about James Bond and related topics. Contributors included Raymond Benson, the 007 continuation novel author from 1997 to 2002.

Benson named a character after Paul in his 1999 Bond novel High Time to Kill.

Normally an obituary refers to its subject by his or her last name. But the Spy Commander, for this obit, will refer to him by his first name.

Paul, from the beginning, designed the HMSS pages. His graphics enhanced the articles. He had a way of prodding the authors to make their contributions just a little bit better. Paul would make suggestions to improve the articles.

Those suggestions came in the form of a gentle nudge, not a dictate. HMSS, after all, was a hobby — the toy train analogy — not life or death. Nevertheless, Paul’s instincts were excellent. He was right far more than he was wrong.

Paul Baack-designed promo for the fall 2011 issue of Her Majesty’s Secret Servant, the e-magazine’s last issue.

Paul led a tough life. In 2003, he was paralyzed after being struck by a car. Despite that, he carried on. He utilized voice-activated software to do his HMSS work and follow his various other interests, which included doing artwork such as THIS and THIS and THIS.

This blog was, in fact, Paul’s idea. He wanted a way for HMSS to have a presence on the internet between “issues.” The Spy Commander was among the HMSS contributors.

Eventually, I took over the blog. But I was always aware he was reading. I was always glad to receive his feedback.

HMSS had a good run. It went offline in 2014.

“Bond and Holly” by Paul Baack

Paul was one of the most memorable people I ever met. I cannot imagine the pain and suffering he endured since 2003. But he endured it with warmth, and grace and humor.

James Bond fandom is richer for what Paul and Tom Zielinski started. This blog, obviously, would not exist without Paul’s encouragement.

After HMSS went offline, the blog published THIS POST about how it was now on its own. Paul posted this comment:

“‘Upward and onward’ indeed! Heartfelt thanks to you, Bill, for keeping the flame.”

Thanks to you Paul, for lighting the flame in the first place.

Where No Time to Die went wrong financially

Danny Boyle

Spoilers for those who haven’t seen No Time to Time.

Hindsight, the saying goes, is always 20-20. For No Time to Die, the major financial misstep was when Danny Boyle came aboard as director.

That’s not because Boyle is a bad filmmaker — far from it. Rather, Boyle was hired (along with his preferred screenwriter John Hodge) and the duo would be at odds with Eon Productions.

Eon had spent much of 2017 developing a script by Neal Purvis and Robert Wade. Then, sometime in 2018, the Boyle-Hodge team pitched an idea that Eon Productions and Metro-Goldwyn-Mayer, Bond’s home studio, fell in love with.

By May 2018, Eon and MGM announced that Bond 25 would be directed by Boyle and written by Hodge. Over the next few months, a large rocket model would be constructed as well as a Russian gulag set built in Canada.

Those details would be disclosed by Mark Tildesley, the project’s production designer, in a spring 2020 video interview. Tildesley was recruited to the project by Boyle.

However, by August 2018, Boyle was out because of “creative differences.”

So much for all that set construction. Welcome back, Neal Purvis and Robert Wade. We have a new director (Cary Fukunaga) for you to work with.

Now that the movie is out, the source of the creative differences is out. Eon (and Daniel Craig) wanted one thing for the ending while Boyle wanted something else.

The MI6 James Bond website, on the Oct. 9 edition of its James Bond and Friends podcast said the following about the movie’s ending:

“We’ve heard it from multiple, well-connected sources that it was Craig’s stipulation to do the film.”

As a result of all this, No Time to Die ended up costing (at least) one-and-a-half movies. But it only has *one* revenue stream. There was a lot of unnecessary spending and a lack of financial discipline.

No Time to Die’s global box office exceeds $525 million. That makes it one of the most popular movies in the post-COVID-19 era. But it’s not at a pace to turn a profit in its theatrical release, including production costs approaching $300 million.

In hindsight (that word again), le affaire de Boyle was a detour that added to the costs and didn’t add much to the final product.

So it goes.

RE-POST: A sample of Fleming’s U.N.C.L.E. correspondence

Ian Fleming

This month marks the 59th anniversary of the meetings Ian Fleming had with television producer Norman Felton. Those meetings led to The Man From U.N.C.L.E. television series that ran from 1964 to 1968. This is a re-post of a 2015 article.

A Bond collector friend let us look over his photocopies of various Ian Fleming correspondence. Much of it included the 007 author’s involvement with The Man From U.N.C.L.E. television series.

First, there were photocopies of 11 Western Union telegraph blanks where Fleming in October 1962 provided ideas to U.N.C.L.E. producer Norman Felton. The first blank began with “springboards,” ideas that could be the basis for episodes.

One just reads, “Motor racing, Nurburgring.” Fleming had a similar idea for a possible James Bond television series in the 1950s. This notion was included in this year’s 007 continuation novel Trigger Mortis by Anthony Horwitz, which boasts of containing original Ian Fleming content.

On the fifth telegram blank, Fleming includes this idea about Napoleon Solo: “Cooks own meals in rather coppery kitchen.”

Whether intentional or not, this idea saw the light of day in The Man From U.N.C.L.E. movie released in August. In an early scene in the film, Solo (Henry Cavill) is wearing a chef’s apron, having just prepared dinner for Gaby Teller (Alicia Vikander) after getting her across the Berlin Wall.

Fleming also made some other observations about Solo and the proposed series.

Telegraph blank No. 8: “He must not be too ‘UN’” and not be “sanctimonious, self righteous. He must be HUMAN above all else –- but slightly super human.”

Telegraph blank No. 11: “In my mind, producing scripts & camera will *make* this series. The plots will be secondary.”

On May 8, 1963, the Ashley-Steiner agency sends a letter to Metro-Goldwyn-Mayer, which includes details about Fleming’s financial demands for being a participant in U.N.C.L.E.

“He definitely wants to be involved in the series itself if there is a sale and is asking for a mutual commitment for story lines on the basis of two out of each 13 programs at a fee of $2500.00 per story outline,” according to the letter.

Fleming also wants a fee of $25,000 to be a consultant for the series per television season. In that role, the author wants two trips per “production year” to travel to Los Angeles for at least two weeks each trip and for as long as four weeks each trip. The author wants to fly to LA first class and also wants a per diem on the trips of $50 a day.

On June 7, 1963, Felton sends Fleming a letter containing material devised by Sam Rolfe, the writer-producer commissioned to write the U.N.C.L.E. pilot.

“In the latter part of the material, which deals with the characterization of Napoleon Solo, you will discover that those elements which you set down during our New York visit have been retained,” Felton writes Fleming. “However, the concept for a base of operations consisting of a small office with more or less a couple of rooms has been changed to a more extensive setup.”

This refers to the U.N.C.L.E. organization that Rolfe has created in the months since the original Fleming-Felton meetings in New York.

“It will give us scope and variety whenever we need it, although as I have said, in many stories we may use very little of it,” Felton writes. “This is its virtue. Complex, but used sparingly.

“In my opinion almost all of our stories we will do little more than ‘touch base’ at a portion of the unusual headquarters in Manhattan, following which we will quickly move to other areas of the world.”

At the same time, Felton asks Fleming for additional input.

“I want the benefit of having your suggestions,” Felton writes Fleming. “Write them in the margin of the paper, on a telegraph blank or a paper towel and send them along. We are very excited, indeed, in terms of MR. SOLO.” (emphasis added)

However, Fleming — under pressure from 007 film producers Albert R. Broccoli and Harry Saltzman — soon signs away his rights to U.N.CL.E. for 1 British pound.

On July 8, 1963, Felton sends Fleming a brief letter. It reads in part:

Your new book, “On Her Majesty’s Secret Service”, is delightful. I am hoping that things will calm down for you in the months to come so that in due time you will be able to develop another novel to give further pleasure to your many readers throughout the world.

They tell me that there are some islands in the Pacific where one can get away from it all. They are slightly radioactive, but for anyone with the spirit of adventure, this should be no problem.

Fleming responds on July 16, 1963.

Very many thanks for your letter and it was very pleasant to see you over here although briefly and so frustratingly for you.

Your Pacific islands sound very enticing, it would certainly be nice to see some sun as ever since you charming Americans started your long range weather forecasting we have had nothing but rain. You might ask them to lay off.

With best regards and I do hope Solo gets off the pad in due course.

NTTD passes $500 million global mark

No Time to Die surpassed the $500 million global box office mark this weekend. (UPDATE: The worldwide figure is at an estimated $525.7 million, according to Box Office Mojo.)

Before the COVID-19 pandemic, that would have been cause for mourning after four weeks in theaters worldwide and three weekends in the U.S. Before COVID-19, Bond would have been a candidate for a billion-dollar global box office.

However, in a post-pandemic marketplace, the 25th James Bond film, already ranks as one of the most popular movies in terms of movie theater box office.

No Time to Die passing the $500 million mark was noted in a story by TheWrap.

The highest COVID era box office currently is F9: The Fast Saga at $716.6 million. No Time to Die has yet to be released in China, Australia and New Zealand.

No Time to Die completed principal photography in the fall of 2019, before COVID-19 began to spread across the world. It has been delayed three times because of the pandemic. ‘

Meanwhile, estimates of No Time to Die’s third weekend in the U.S. were released. The Bond film came in No. 3 behind Dune, the major new movie out this weekend, and Halloween Kills. Here’s a tweet from Exhibitor Relations Co.

TOP 5 DOMESTIC BOX OFFICE

1. DUNE ($40M)
2. HALLOWEEN KILLS ($14M)
3. NO TIME TO DIE ($11M)
4. VENOM 2 ($9M)
5. RON'S GONE WRONG ($7M)

All of these movies were released in October. Of this year. Of this decade. Big change from a year ago.

— Exorcist Relations Co. (@ERCboxoffice) October 24, 2021

If No Time to Die passes F9 globally , that will be a sign that James Bond remains very popular. At the same time, a movie can be popular while unprofitable at least during its theatrical release.

No Time to Die had a production cost approaching $300 million. There were additional advertising and marketing expenditures. What’s more, the studios involved (Metro-Goldwyn-Mayer and Universal) only get about half of the box office. In China, it’s only 25 percent.

As ever, we will see.

UPDATE: The U.S. weekend box office estimate is $11.9 million. The final figure will be out on Oct. 25.

Vulture highlights ‘hidden costs’ of NTTD delays

No Time to Die logo

Vulture, part of New York magazine on Oct. 22 came out with an article about the “Huge Hidden Costs of Holding a Blockbuster.” While it included various delayed films, its prime example was No Time to Die.

The story by Chris Lee provides pieces of the financial puzzle involving the three COVID-related delays for the 25th James Bond film.

Among them:

–February 2020 Super Bowl ad for No Time to Die cost $5.69 million. The next month, the first of the COVID delays was announceed.

–Product placement partners spent $66 million during 2020 only to see the movie delayed into 2021.

–Metro-Goldwyn-Mayer, Bond’s home studio, and Universal, the movie’s international distributor, spent $175 million in prints and advertising costs in the last few weeks before the film’s release.

There was also this passage:

 While some Hollywood watchers speculated that No Time to Die’s days on the October-release calendar were numbered, others gave voice to a grim reality — namely, that half-siblings Barbara Broccoli and Michael G. Wilson, the top executives at 007’s longtime production company Eon (which has final say on the film’s distribution strategy), couldn’t afford to hold it any longer. “The Broccolis care about the U.K. more than anything — making it a big hit in the U.K., a decent hit in the U.S. and the rest of the world,” says a person with knowledge of Eon. “But they’ve lost so much money by moving No Time to Die, the marketing has gotten stale.”

The business about Eon Productions most caring about the U.K. has been reported by other outlets. But this article gets into other aspects of the delay. Another excerpt:

In February 2020, Billie Eilish dropped the movie’s slow-burn theme song, “No Time to Die,” which generated 2.2 million YouTube views within six hours and hit the top of the U.K. singles chart). And co-star Ana de Armas graced the cover of the March issue of Vanity Fair — invaluable promotional real estate for which there would be no do-over.

To view the entire article, CLICK HERE.

A few quirks in the development of No Time to Die

No Time to Die poster released Sept. 1.

Every movie has its quirks on the way to the silver screen. No Time to Die certainly had its share. Here are a few.

The writing

July 2017: Eon Productions announces Neal Purvis and Robert Wade are writing Bond 25. At this point, Daniel Craig’s return as Bond hadn’t been announced yet.

December 2017: Eon boss Barbara Broccoli says on a Hollywood Reporter podcast that Purvis and Wade were “busy working away, trying to come up with something fantastic.”

May 2018: John Hodge is announced as the sole writer of Bond 25, to be directed by Danny Boyle.

August 2018: Boyle departs Bond 25 over “creative differences.” Hodge leaves also. Purvis and Wade end up returning.

Boyle vs. Fukunaga

Spring 2020: Production designer Mark Tildesley worked under both Boyle and his replacement, Cary Fukunaga. Tildesley says during Boyle’s time on the project, the art department had built a 350-foot rocket and a Russian gulag set in Canada.

February 2019: The MI6 James Bond website says for most of the Hodge/Boyle script, Bond was imprisoned by the villain.

September 2021: Fukunaga tells The Hollywood Reporter that the Boyle-Hodge project was “more tongue-in-cheek and whimsical.”

Query: If all of this is correct, did Boyle want a “whimsical” story set in a Russian gulag? A sort of modern-day Hogan’s Heroes?

Leslie Bricusse, prolific songwriter, dies at 90

Leslie Bricusse (1931- 2021)

Leslie Bricusse, a prolific songwriter whose work included some of the best-known songs of the 1960s spy craze, has died at 90, according to the BBC.

Bricusse, over his career, picked up two Oscars and multiple nominations.

His work included the 1967 film Doctor Doolittle, where he wrote the screenplay and the music and lyrics for the songs. The movie included the song If I Could Talk to the Animals, which has been re-recorded on numerous occasions.

Bricusse became familiar to fans of 1960s spy movies. He collaborated with composer John Barry and wrote the lyrics to two of the most famous James Bond songs, Goldfinger (with Anthony Newley) and You Only Live Twice.

Goldfinger, recorded by Shirley Bassey, was a big hit song. The subject of Bond, though, wasn’t new to Bricusse. He told Jon Burlingame, author of The Music of James Bond, that he was a fan of Ian Fleming’s novels.

“I read the books from the day they came out,” Bricusse said. The songwriter told Burlingame they key to writing the song was the phrase “Midas touch,” because after that the rest of the lyrics came together.

John Barry

With You Only Live Twice, the Barry-Bricusse team wrote two songs. The first, recorded by Julie Rogers, went unused (surfacing in the early 1990s on a collection of 007 title songs and film music). The second attempt was written in early 1967, according to Burlingame’s book.

“John made it easy for the lyric writer in that the music said what it was meant to be,” Bricusse told Burlingame. “Remember, you go in (a) knowing the context, (b) you’ve got the melody, and (c) you’re given the title of the song. So it’s fill in the blanks.” The song was recorded by Nancy Sinatra.

Barry and Bricusse also worked together on another Bond song, Mr. Kiss Kiss Bang Bang. It was intended as the title song for 1965’s Thunderball. But the production team vetoed it at the last minute, instead wanting a song titled Thunderball.

Barry and Don Black collaborated on Thunderball, which was recorded by Tom Jones. However, music from the Mister Kiss Kiss Bang Bang song was woven into the film’s score by Barry.

Bricusse also worked with Jerry Goldsmith on the unlikely titled Your Zowie Face in 1967’s In Like Flint. An instrumental version was used in the main titles. But the end titles featured full vocals.

Zowie came from Z.O.W.I.E., or Zonal Organization for World Intelligence and Espionage, that was part of the two Derek Flint films starring James Coburn. Working “zowie” into a song sounds as if it might have been difficult, but the song actually works.

Bricusse knew early he wanted to be a songwriter.

“I wanted to grow up to be George and Ira Gershwin from the age of about six,” he told the Financial Times in a November 2017 interview.

Asked by the FT what kept him motivated, Bricusse replied: “The sheer pleasure of writing. When you live in a world of imagination, your imagination doesn’t necessarily grow old with you.”

The songwriter also told the FT he didn’t believe in an afterlife.

“No. I think we have to assume we have one life,” he said. “Though having said that, I did write a song called ‘You Only Live Twice’. I’ll settle for that.”

Introducing The Spy Command’s (sort of) podcast

Griffey the Griffin

In marketing, it’s called “extending the brand.” The Spy Command is adding a (sort of) podcast.

It consists of audio versions of Spy Command posts. No major investment of time is needed. All but one entry so far last less than four minutes.

This began as an experiment. The blog is hosted on WordPress and it offers an option to turn a post into a podcast.

I’ve held off until now. But I decided to give it a try, at least in baby steps. The first four used an auto-recorded. The problem with that is the auto voice “reads” photo captions as if they were regular text.

So I’ve started doing the recordings myself. That also enables me to place the proper emphasis on sentences.

You can see the podcast’s HOME PAGE ON SPOTIFY. Undoubtedly, there will be more changes ahead.

Bond 25 questions: The box office edition

No Time to Die has been out for a few weeks. Once a movie is released, entertainment-news outlets chew over the numbers. Fans then react to stories.

Naturally, the blog has questions.

So how well is No Time to Die doing?

As of Oct. 17, it had an estimated box office take of $348.3 million internationally and $99.5 million in the U.S. for a grand total of $447.8 million.

That has been depicted as strong internationally, not so much in the U.S.

Why “not so much” in the U.S.?

Because as recently as Oct. 4, two weeks ago, there were some estimates No Time to Die’s U.S. opening weekend could be $100 million, according to CNBC.

The movie’s final U.S. opening weekend number was $55,225,007, according to Box Office Mojo. That’s nothing to sneeze at but obviously not $100 million.

And the 25th James Bond film’s U.S. opening weekend was below recent movies such as Venom: Let There Be Carnage ($90 million) and Shang Chi and the Legend of the Ten Rings ($75.4 million).

I see estimates it may take a global box office of more than $900 million for the movie to break even. How is that?

The studios split that box office with theaters. Precise figures vary, but a rule of thumb is studios get about 50 percent. In China, that’s only 25 percent. But that’s a huge market, so the studios want to be there.

No Time to Die also was very expensive. A U.K. regulatory filing last year indicated the production cost was nearing $300 million. There were also marketing costs, including a pricey Super Bowl ad, in February 2020. Pandemic-related delays may have boosted the marketing expenses.

The MI6 James Bond website published an analysis on Aug. 2. It said No Time to Die “needs to clear $928m at the box office to avoid losing money.” Other outlets have published similar figures. Variety, in an Oct. 11 story, said the film will need “to gross at least $800 million globally to get out of the red (probably closer to $900 million).”

To be clear, the accountants at Metro-Goldwyn-Mayer, Bond’s home studio, and Universal, handing international distribution, know far more than fans and other outsiders.

Since the pandemic, what movie has had the highest box office?

F9: The Fast Saga at almost $716.6 million.

Can No Time to Die beat that?

The movie is to be released in additional markets. It remains to be seen.