A footnote about NTTD’s box office

No Time to Die poster

In the comment section to THIS MAY 16 POST there was a discussion about how well 2021’s No Time to Die did on its theatrical release.

I jumped in. What follows is adapted from the comment I left.

No Time to Die’s worldwide gross: $774.1 million, according to Box Office Mojo.

Studios typically keep half of the gross. The figures vary by market. In China, it’s low as 25%. Still 50% overall is considered an acceptable figure for rough calculations. That means Metro-Goldwyn-Mayer (in partnership with United Artists Releasing in the U.S. and Universal internationally) got to keep about $387 million.

No Time to Die’s production budget: A Dec. 1, 2020 U.K. regulatory filing said the budget was almost £214 million as of June 30, 2020.

Re: £214 million figure. At 2024 exchange rates, that’s about $272 million.

Post on this blog at the time:
https://hmssweblog.wordpress.com/2020/12/03/nttd-cost-approaches-290m-b25-says/

The filing figure was not the final number. But let’s say it is. That leaves NTTD ahead by roughly $115 million.

Then, there’s the question of marketing costs (not included in the production budget).

We don’t really know the marketing costs for NTTD. Typically, a big “tentpole” movie has marketing costs of $100 million or more.

With NTTD, with its multiple release dates (because of COVID-19), it *might* have been more. MGM bought an expensive U.S. commercial for the Super Bowl in February 2020. That year, the average cost of a 30-second spot for the game exceeded $5 million. That ad purchase was based on the spring 2020 release date that got postponed because of COVID. That advertisement alone put a big dent into No Time to Die’s marketing costs.

Still, let’s use the typical $100 million figure for marketing. Then NTTD was profitable in its theatrical run — but not by much. Maybe $15 million. That’s a 4% rate of return on a big investment.

Are these “back of the envelope” calculations? Of course.

But even if everything went the movie’s way, it wasn’t wildly profitable. These rough calculations leave out MGM’s borrowing costs to finance the movie.

Given some recent movie financial disasters (the fifth Indiana Jones movie, and underperforming superhero movies such as The Flash and The Marvels), that’s an accomplishment. But only to a point.

Before No Time to Die was released, MGM got gobbled up by Amazon. With that deal, MGM recouped its huge costs for the 25th Bond film made by Eon Productions.

A silly Bond 26 take

With the absence of actual Bond 26 news, the ScreenRant website has come out with speculation. A lot of it is silly. But, hey, it’s worth a look.

Promo via X (formerly Twitter): “Bond 26 will take the 007 series in a new direction, and if the franchise’s last reboot attempt 18 years ago is anything to go by, it’ll be a hit.”

Reality check: There’s still no script, still no director, and still no actor. That’s a little early to declare *anything* a hit.

Silly remark, re: Bond 26: “It’s likely that the series will once again start from scratch.”

You think? The Daniel Craig version of Bond got killed off at the end of No Time to Die. It’d be kind of hard to carry on the story of story of Craig/Bond when he’s a pile of ash.

Silly remark II: “What’s more is that 2006’s Casino Royale is the only example of a remake within the franchise (if 1983’s Never Say Never Again, an unofficial remake of Thunderball isn’t included). Casino Royale was previously adapted into a 1967 movie starring David Niven and Peter Sellers, though the film only loosely follows the story of the book and instead adopts a broadly comedic tone.

Reality check: Casino Royale (2006) was not a remake of Casino Royale (1967). The 2006 movie was made by Eon Productions. The 1967 film was made by producer Charles K. Feldman. Never Say Never Again was another non-Eon production. What was Screen Rant thinking?

Silly remark III: “Since Fleming’s death, several writers, such as John Gardner, Raymond Benson, Sebastian Faulks, and Anthony Horowitz, have all turned their hand to writing James Bond continuation novels. Despite the wealth of material available, none of these books have ever been adapted or even partially adapted for film.”

Reality check: A key sequence from Colonel Sun, written by Kingsley Amis under the pen name Robert Markham, was used in 2015’s SPECTRE. Eon did its best to disguise that fact. In the long end titles, there was a “special thanks” credit to the estate of Amis.

British tabloids, of course, often do an awful job with stories about Bond films. Remember how Aaron Taylor-Johnson was going to be the next Bond actor? But it’s not just the British tabloids.

Dabney Coleman dies at 92

Dabney Coleman (1932-2024)

Dabney Coleman, who had a long career mostly (but not always) playing awful characters, has died at 92, according to an obituary posted by The Hollywood Reporter.

Coleman, over his long career, played both an LAPD detective assisting Lt. Columbo in a 1970s episode prior to playing the killer in a 1990s episode.

The actor also appeared in a number of shows made by producer Quinn Martin. He was in the pilot for The FBI (that episode was the fourth installment broadcast) as well as portraying a sympathetic character in the final episode telecast in 1974. He appeared in other QM series including The Invaders.

An excerpt from the THR obit:

Coleman appeared on such shows as Ben Casey, Dr. Kildare, The Alfred Hitchcock Hour, The Outer Limits, Hazel, I Dream of Jeannie and The Fugitive before recurring as Marlo Thomas’ neighbor, the obstetrician Leon Bessemer, on the first season (1966-67) of That Girl.

He auditioned for Gilligan’s Island but lost the role of the Professor to Russell Johnson.

Coleman also appeared as a submarine captain in the pilot for The Flying Nun.

According to The Hollywood Reporter, Coleman said his later decision to grow a mustache extended his acting career.

“Without the mustache, I looked too much like Richard Nixon,” he told Vulture. “There’s no question that when I grew that, all of a sudden, everything changed.”

Coleman’s IMDB.COM ENTRY lists 179 acting credits.

About how genre entertainment runs out of time

When does the sun set on various genres of entertainment?

I was catching up with a good friend recently. We’ll call him Jim from Detroit. We discussed how different types of genre entertainment (and their actors) run their course over time.

Specifically, we talked about various movie stars have their moments — among them James Stewart, Henry Fonda, Burt Reynolds, Fred MacMurray, and others — before their time is up.

Example: by the 1970s, Fonda and Stewart were mostly doing TV shows, rather than being movie leading men in movies. Reynolds’ tenure as a big-time movie star was mostly gone in the early 1980s.

The James Bond film franchise is a big exception. Except, the stardom of many of the Bond film actors didn’t take hold past their 007 tenure. To be sure, Sean Connery had a big renaissance of stardom after his time as Bond was up. Roger Moore, George Lazenby, Timothy Dalton, Pierce Brosnan, and Daniel Craig? Not so much.

Westerns and (perhaps) superhero movies have run out of steam. Each genre had decades of popularity in their day.

The reaction of many 007 fans? Bond will go on forever!

Maybe so. But that’s not a sure bet. Let’s see how Eon Productions will answer this challenge in the future.

UPDATE: By the late 1960s and 1970s, the Western genre was being deconstructed by the likes of The Wild Bunch and other films. The Cowboys and The Shootist even had stories where the leading performer of the genre (John Wayne) saw his characters killed off. No Time to Die, of course, was the ultimate deconstruction of James Bond where he was killed off.

Sherwood, Higson to discuss writing 007 books

Authors Kim Sherwood and Charlie Higson are scheduled to talk about James Bond (or Bond-related) novels at an event later this month.

The writers are part of a program at the Bath Festival at 11 a.m., London time, on May 26. The festival says the authors will conduct “an in-depth discussion on James Bond, the world’s greatest literary spy” and why the character still resonates more than 70 years after his debut in Ian Fleming’s 1953 novel Casino Royale.

Sherwood has written two novels about 00-agents other than Bond. She details their adventures while Bond himself is missing. Higson wrote a series of “Young Bond” novels as well as a 2023 novella, On His Majesty’s Secret Service, a story connected to the coronation of King Charles.

The event is at the Guildhall and tickets cost £8 ($10.15) or £13 ($16.49).

Separately, Ian Fleming Publications announced a special limited edition of 200 copies of a new paperback edition of On His Majesty’s Secret Service. Each copy is signed by Higson. The price is £9.99 ($12.67).

IFP says the new edition has “revised text and exclusive bonus content.” On His Majesty’s Secret Service was produced in a hurry. Higson last year acknowledged not catching some mistakes until he recorded the audiobook version.

UPDATE (May 16): Ian Fleming Publications in a May 16 post on X that the special edition of 200 signed copies of On His Majesty’s Secret Service was sold out.

The least sexy James Bond movie vehicles

The James Bond film series is best known for fast Aston Martin and Lotus sports cars (often with gadgets). But there are quite a few Bond vehicles that don’t get the heart pumping. Here are some examples:

Kerim Bey’s station wagon

In From Russia With Love, Kerim Bey sends a Rolls-Royce limousine to pick James Bond up from the Istanbul airport. Later in the movie, the head of Station T sends the Rolls (with two dummies in the back) off in another direction while he and Bond travel to a gypsy camp in a station wagon.

The modest transportation works in the context of the story. The flashy Rolls is a decoy. Bond’s journey in Kerim’s station wagon helps set up one of the key sequences of the movie. But the station wagon isn’t particularly sexy. In 1966’s The Silencers, Matt Helm (Dean Martin) also goes around in a station wagon. But Dino’s wheels include a bar (!).

James Bond’s Lincoln Continental

In Thunderball, Bond (Sean Connery) again drives the Aston Martin DB5 he had earlier piloted in Goldfinger. The fourth Bond film made by Eon Productions provided 007 a more down-to-earth set of wheels once Bond got to The Bahamas — a Lincoln Continental he drove up to the estate of Largo (Adolfo Celi). The Lincoln is only briefly seen onscreen.

Honda ATV (all-terrain vehicle)

In Diamonds Are Forever, Sean Connery’s final movie for Eon Productions, the intrepid agent infiltrates a Nevada installation owned by industrialist Willard Whyte. Bond is discovered and has to get out fast.

He first steals a “moon buggy” being developed by Whyte’s company (which is under control of Blofeld). Bond manages to get out of the moon buggy while the vehicle continues on its way. Bond then overcomes one of the Whyte security personnel, who is driving a three-wheel Honda all-terrain vehicle (or ATV).

Despite the lack of dignity, Bond drives the ATV until he can rendezvous with Tiffany Case (Jill St. John). She is waiting with a new Ford Mustang, the main product placement deal of the film.

Bond’s Ford LTD

In A View to a Kill, Bond (Roger Moore) is following Stacey Sutton (Tanya Roberts) around San Francisco in a Ford LTD. The LTD was a big, boxy Ford sedan that went out of production and is long forgotten. Presumably, in the story, it was a rental car but that’s not spelled out in the movie.

By the time of the release of A View to a Kill, the LTD was on its last legs. The model would soon be phased out in favor of the Ford Taurus.

Bond’s Lincoln Mark VII

In Licence to Kill (1989), Bond (Timothy Dalton) intends to depart Florida after Felix Leiter (David Hedison) has gotten married. Dalton’s Bond is depicted as getting ready to return his rental car. But things take a turn when Bond discovers Leiter never made his honeymoon. Bond goes rogue, doesn’t catch his flight, and instead gets back in the car to figure out what’s going on.

Bond’s Ford Mondeo

2006 Ford Mondeo prototype driven by Daniel Craig in Casino Royale (photo by The Spy Command)

Technically, the first car driven by the Daniel Craig version of Bond was a Ford Mondeo. The automaker had redesigned the European car and arranged for it to be in 2006’s Casino Royale. The car in the film wasn’t then (and still isn’t) street-legal. Bond drives the car (or so it seems) after the agent has arrived in The Bahamas.

Many Bond fans can’t stand the Mondeo’s appearance in the movie, viewing it as an obvious commercial for Ford. The magic of cinema likely made the Mondeo appear to be traveling faster than it could, via camera angles and sound effects.

About ‘saving cinema’

One of the would-be saviors of cinema

The COVID-19 pandemic is long over. But movies — despite repeated comments that certain movies would save cinema — are still hurting.

I’m old enough to remember when some Bond fans said No Time to Die was “saving cinema.” Maybe in the U.K., but not in the U.S. The 25th James Bond film did fine in the U.S., almost $161 million. But it was only No. 007 in the U.S. for calendar 2021. Some protest, “What about COVID?” The first six also dealt with COVID. The No. 1 2021 movie was Spider-Man: No Way Home at almost $805 million (U.S.), $1.1 billion (global).

In 2022, Top Gun: Maverick, Tom Cruise’s sequel to a long-ago hit, was an enormous success, with almost $719 million in the U.S. and almost $1.5 billion worldwide. At a public event, director Steven Spielberg told Cruise, “You saved Hollywood’s ass.” There are various videos of this exchange, including THIS ONE.

In 2023, Cruise’s luck ran out. Mission: Impossible Dead Recocking Part One generated U.S. box office of $172.1 million and a worldwide take of $395.4 million. Nice, but below its previous installment, Mission: Impossible Fallout (more than $220 million, U.S., almost $792 million globally).

Whatever “secret sauce” Cruise had, it didn’t carry over into 2023. The next M:I installment (originally set for 2024) got delayed to 2025. The top global box office movies were Barbie and Oppenheimer.

In 2024? May is supposed to be the start of the “summer” movie season when big blockbusters reach theaters.

In the U.S., for the May 3-5 weekend, the No. 1 film was The Fall Guy at just under $28 million. For the May 10-12 weekend, the top film is Kingdom of the Planet of the Apes at an estimated $56.5 million.

Not small numbers, to be sure. But once upon a time (especially before the pandemic), figures came in at $100 million and above.

Despite the heralded saviors of cinema, it hasn’t been saved yet.

Movies are a mess and for many reasons. Netflix upended things with streaming. Studios, including Disney (which spent more than $70 billion to buy 20th Century Fox), Paramount and whoever owns Warner Bros. this week, have been chasing Netflix. Why rush out to a theater when you can see a movie soon on streaming? At least that’s something cinema is having to deal with.

Going back to the start of this article: When the James Bond franchise finally gets around to Bond 26, the entertainment world will be much different. MGM, one of the business partners of Eon Productions, is now owned by Amazon, which has a major streaming service.

Belated obit: Veteran TV writer Anthony Lawrence

A scene from Three Dead Cows at Makapuu, a Hawaii Five-O story written by Anthony Lawrence.

Anthony Lawrence, a television writer who devised stories across multiple genres, died in February at 95, according to the Writers Guild of America in memoriam page.

His credits include nine episodes of the original Hawaii Five-O series, starting with the second season and running through the sixth.

On Five-O, Lawrence often penned stories that had unhappy endings. Among them was a two-part story, Three Dead Cows at Makapuu. In that story, an idealistic scientist — who has gone missing after working on the U.S.’s germ warfare program — decides the only way to get the world’s attention is to unleash a potent sample that will wipe out all life on Oahu.

Eventually, the scientist (Ed Flanders) changes his mind and sacrifices himself to prevent the catastrophe.

Another Lawrence-written Five-O episode, Death With Father, was directed by series star Jack Lord. The story concerned how the son of a former policeman had become a criminal. In the conclusion, the son blows up himself and his father.

Lawrence wrote for Western shows, including eight episodes of Bonanza. His output included three episodes that told the back story of each of the wives of Ben Cartwright (Lorne Greene). The scribe also tackled science fiction (The Outer Limits), contemporary dramas (Slattery’s People), and medical dramas (Ben Casey, Dr. Kildare, Medical Center). He also had an Elvis Presley movie, Roustabout, on his resume.

Lawrence’s IMDB.COM ENTRY lists more than 60 credits from 1959 to 2016.

About Benson’s best 007 continuation novel

U.K. cover to High Time to Kill, the James Bond continuation novel by Raymond Benson

This week marks the 25th anniversary of the publication of High Time to Kill, the third Raymond Benson James Bond continuation novel.

Benson (b. 1955), an American, was hired to be the new Bond continuation author in 1995 after John Gardner had finished his long run. Benson earlier had written the reference book The James Bond Bedside Companion.

Besides doing novels, Benson penned a number of Bond short stories, some of which were commissioned by Playboy and TV Guide. Glidrose (later Ian Fleming Publications) had approval for publication as well as titles of the Benson novels. The author could suggest titles but he didn’t have the final say.

High Time to Kill stands out among the Benson stories because of its details about mountain climbing. A henchman in the novel was named after Benson’s friend (and proofreader) Paul Baack.

In that respect, Benson followed in the footsteps of Ian Fleming, who named characters after friends of his. “Aieeeeee!” the literary Baack yelled as he fell to his death. (I’m not sure I got all the “e’s” right.)

Michelle Yeoh receives top U.S. civilian honor

Michelle Yeoh recalling working on Tomorrow Never Dies in a video

Michelle Yeoh, who played a Chinese secret agent in 1997’s Tomorrow Never Dies, this week received the highest U.S. civilian honor.

Yeoh was one of 19 people awarded the Presidential Medal of Freedom. She previously won an Oscar for the movie Everything Everywhere All at Once.

The Medal of Freedom is given out by the U.S. president each year. It’s awarded to those who have made “an especially meritorious contribution to the security or national interests of the United States, world peace, cultural or other significant public or private endeavors,” according to its definition on Wikipedia.

Many politicians receive the award. This year the award was given to former Speaker of the House Nancy Pelosi, former Vice President Al Gore, and former Secretary of State John Kerry. The current U.S. president, Joseph Biden, was given one when he was vice president under then-President Barack Obama.

But such awards are given to people in various fields, including sports, business, and entertainment. Another one of the 2024 recipients was Medgar Evans, a civil rights activist, who was assassinated in 1963.

Yeoh played agent Wai Lin in Tomorrow Never Dies. She and Pierce Brosnan’s James Bond are both investigating a media baron played by Jonathan Pryce. The businessman is trying to start a war between the U.K. and China to expand the ratings of his worldwide news channel. Yeoh’s martial arts skills were a highlight of the Bond movie.

Once upon a time, being a Bond woman was seen as a curse: You get a big movie and then disappear into obscurity. That hasn’t been the case for a while but Yeoh’s post-Bond career stands out.