The film of the James Bond franchise No Time to Die had the honor of dethroning the Chinese local meeting record holder Battle of Changjing Lake from the top spot. But the first outing of the agent 007 is not impressive – the studio will not be happy with how China fixed things with the box office. All Friday, No Time to Die confidently held the top of the Chinese box office, with a market share of up to 55% in the morning sessions. By midnight local time, that number had fallen to 49% and the film had grossed 49.7 million yuan ($28 million), including online collections.
Despite the release of no less than three new films this weekend (Last Night in Soho, Antlers, and My Hero Academia) and The French Dispatch opening in 788 theaters, the Warner Bros. Dune easily held the top spot at the box office in its second outing with $15.53 million, down 62% from its $41 million debut. Mixed results were expected for the rest of the weekend’s films, which saw box office declines in part due to Halloween falling on a Sunday. Dune had no direct competition as a big-budget project this weekend, though as with previous HBO Max releases, namely The Suicide Squad and Mortal Kombat, both of which dropped more than 70% in their second weekends, Dune suffered quite strong. The $165 million project, which the studio approved for a sequel last week, has grossed $69.4 million in North America to date. Unfortunately, the adaptation, directed by Danny Villeneuve, will not “survive” next weekend’s release of Marvel’s Eternals, which will undoubtedly dominate the box office and take away a significant portion of Dune’s audience.
Inspired by the titular holiday and despite competition from two new horror films, Halloween Kills finished second in its third weekend with $8.5 million, down 41% from last weekend. The horror sequel’s total now stands at $85.63 million, which is about 57% of its predecessor, which debuted exclusively in theaters before the pandemic. No Time to Die fell just 36% to third place with an estimate of $7.82 million, bringing James Bond’s total to $133.33 million by the end of its fourth weekend.
French Dispatch collected $2.76M in an expansion from 52 to 788 screens after the Wes Anderson-directed film debuted to a solid $1.35M last weekend. The average gross per screen for this quirky comedy was $3,503; its domestic cume currently stands at $4.64 million.
Overseas, Dune grossed $21.4 million in 75 countries, bringing the film to $222.7 million overseas and $292.1 million worldwide. To date, the sci-fi epic has collected $33 million in China, $29 million in France, $21 million in Russia, $19.9 million in Germany and $18.1 million in the UK. Venom: Let There Be Carnage also grossed around $21.4 million in 53 countries, bringing its international cume to $205.4 million and a worldwide total of $395.8 million. The top grossing countries for the film were Russia ($31.2 million), Mexico ($21.5 million), Great Britain ($20.2 million), South Korea ($16.8 million) and Brazil ($10.1 million) .
