Bond 25 questions: The box office edition (updated)

No Time to Die poster.

No Time to Die passed two box office milestones, $700 million worldwide and $150 million in the United States.

How important is this? Naturally, the blog has questions.

This is good news, right? It means that No Time to Die is the No. 6 box office movie in the U.S. so far this year and No. 2 globally among movies financed by major U.S. studios. The Bond movie may be about to catch F9: The Fast Saga at $721 million.

So? That means, even in a post-COVID 19 pandemic era, that James Bond still is very popular.

Is there a caveat? Yes. No Time to Die still hasn’t reached profitability during its theatrical release.

During a film’s theatrical run, studios split the take with theaters. No Time to Die’s production cost approached $300 million. It had additional marketing costs on top of that. The most notable was a February 2020 Super Bowl TV ad estimated at $5.69 million that was flushed down the drain by COVID delays. There were tens of millions of more dollars spent after that.

But aren’t there more revenue streams? Sure. There are video on demand rentals (which began in the U.S. on Nov. 9) and the early home video releases.

Still, studios prefer a movie get into profit territory during its theatrical release.

With COVID-19, studios are in new territory. Before the pandemic, studios were able to generate box office of $1 billion or more per movie in theaters. In 2019, Avengers: Endgame scored almost $2.8 billion in theaters worldwide.

In 2021, no movie has reached $1 billion. It’s a new world for studios for a lot of reasons.

No Time to Die was made during one era. It was released during another. Clearly, Bond’s popularity remains high. But the future may require changes. As usual, we’ll see.

No Time to Die passes $150M in U.S., $700M globally

No Time to Die is forecast to become the sixth movie to pass the $150 million mark in the U.S. this year according to Exhibitor Relations Co., which tracks box office data.

At the same time, the film passed $700 million worldwide, The Wrap reported. The entertainment news site listed the figure as $708 million. No Time to Die opened in Australia on Nov. 11, one of the last major markets for the Bond movie. No Time to Die is close to catching F9: The Fast Saga’s $721 million.

In the U.S. the 25th James Bond film is estimated to generate $4.6 million for the Nov. 12-14 weekend. That’s down just 23 percent from last weekend. The movie has been available on video on demand (VOD) since Nov. 9. The rental price is $19.99 for 48 hours.

Only two 2021 movies, Shang-Chi and the Legend of the Ten Rings and Venom: Let There Be Carnage, have surpassed the $200 million mark in the U.S.

The COVID-19 pandemic has, in effect, reduced the size of the U.S. movie-going market. In pre-pandemic times, 2012’s Skyfall generated U.S. box office of $304.4 million while 2015’s SPECTRE had $200.1 million.

COVID-19 also has held down the global box office. In 2019, Avengers: Endgame had a worldwide box office of almost $2.8 billion. No movie has reached $1 billion in 2021.