No Time to Die also came close at the domestic box office (US and Canada) to breaking the pandemic record set by the horror film Venom: Let There Be Carnage, which debuted last weekend with 90.03 million dollars.
No Time to Die got off to a strong start, debuting with $56 million from 4,407 screens (36% of the film’s weekend gross came from enlarged IMAX and PLF screens)… Although the audience for Sony’s horror sequel was significantly older than that of the first Venom ( 71% of audiences who picked up the original were under 25, compared to 55% for Let There Be Carnage), the fact remains that the age skew is much older with the Bond franchise.
Case in point: 57% of No Time to Die’s opening weekend audience was over 35 and 36% over 45. As the pandemic has shown, moviegoers over 35 — especially women — are generally more cautious than younger people when it comes to returning to theaters. In addition, No Time to Die’s 2 hours and 43 minutes of screen time is almost an hour longer than Venom 2, allowing for fewer screenings – and therefore less profit – each day.
The studio cites “preliminary internal survey data” showing that 25% of moviegoers who came to North American theaters this weekend returned to theaters for the first time since the pandemic began, offering an encouraging turnaround. Good word of mouth could help the film stay afloat against upcoming competition, including next weekend’s newcomers Halloween Kills and The Last Duel , as well as the highly anticipated sci-fi epic Dune .
In second place in the sophomore rankings was Venom 2 Venom: Let There Be Carnage, which fell 64% to $32 million. That’s a steeper second-weekend drop than we saw in the first Venom, which dropped 56%, even though it wasn’t being chased by a behemoth like Bond back then. However, Let There Be Carnage has grossed $141.67 million to date – less than 1% of the first Venom at the same stage of its run.
The Addams Family 2 held up well in its second weekend, dropping just 42% to $10.02 million for a total of $31.14 million so far. That’s actually better than the first Addams Family, which fell 46% in its second weekend.
Despite a more modest-than-expected debut in North America, No Time to Die went on to clean up the box office overseas, where it grossed a staggering $89.54 million in 66 countries. The picture, which was released primarily by Universal internationally (with some territories under MGM), grossed $257.27 million overseas and $313.28 million worldwide.
The film debuted at No. 1 in France with an estimated $10.1 million, the country’s highest pandemic performance to date. In Great Britain and Ireland, it received about 20.5 million dollars, which is 28% less than in the first weekend in this territory. Its total here now stands at $70.9 million, making it Universal’s fourth-highest-grossing title of all time on the market. No Time to Die opens in China on October 29 and in Australia on November 11.