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SPECTRE has a few things in it's favour:
1. The cast is very diverse. Age, race, gender. This is good because most demographics will find something to like. This doesn't happen with every Bond film.
2. This is the first truly globetrotting Bond of the Craig era. Not only is that appealling to general audiences, but it connects with those nations in particular. e.g. Mexico, UK
3. It is following Skyfall, so will have garnered a certain amount of goodwill from those who would not ordinarily go to see a Bond film in the cinema.
4. Daniel Craig is immensely popular in the role and their is much speculation that this could be his final outing. It may not seem important, but those headlines will actually help SPECTRE at the boxoffice
5. The title say it all. SPECTRE IS BACK. Many older audiences will remember the good old days, when Connery fought Blofeld and SPECTRE, so SPECTRE have a cerain pedigree in the Bond films, like the DB5.
Please note @bondjames, that I am not saying SPECTRE will make one billion dollars easily. It will be a struggle, certainly. But with the positive (7/10) reviews, and audience buzz I think that there is a 50/50 chance SPECTRE can make a billion. I don't think it can match or beat Skyfall, but that is to be expected. :)]
And I completely agree with you. I had the thrill of being in London during that time.
Coupled with Bond's 50th anniversary it was a perfect year to be Bond.
SP doesn't have any of those boosts except being the follow up to SF.
I don't buddy :-). I am discussing with you...and I actually say that this "cheerleading" is perhaps a more general remark. Nothing personal :-).
Great. No hard feelings.
It was not directed with you as I mentioned before. More that I should not do it. I prefer your analogy from before about 'half empty - half full'. We are on opposite sides of that spectrum, but ultimately I think we are both optimists who want this film to succeed (whatever success means.......I don't see it necessarily as beating SF in box office terms....there are other ways to surpass SF).
Notice how Rotten Tomatoes has disappeared from this site in the last hours :)
Last attempt was to make a "more objective Rotten Tomatoes" to try to make SPECTRE's score higher !
I predict we won't hear about RT here from those who wrote about it during years, until SPECTRE is back in the 90% range (if ever).
I really wonder if box office and ratings fans really enjoy movies ? Come on, when Casino Royale was released in the US, the headlines were all about the fact it lost the #1 spot to dancing penguins ! And now, who cares ?
Not entirely. Since the $1.1 Billion figure of "Skyfall", becoming the 2nd biggest Bond film is a rather fluid useless fact. Anything between $600 Million and $1.1 Billion will be "2nd biggest".
Like with "Avengers 2: Age Of Ultron"s insane but still 'disappointing' box office gross of $1.4 Billion, "SPECTRE" really needs to do big big business to not receive a similar 'tag'.
$1 Billion is really the benchmark for Sony. And if it's doing less, then "SPECTRE", with it's insane production budget, will be considered a 'mild failure'.
But again, like I said numerous times. Scrutinize the domestic box office figures of China, Mexico and the States upcoming weeks. Especially in China they know a rat's ass about Bond's history and there "SPECTRE" will already double the box office of "Skyfall".
Then, there's the theater count, which sadly no-one in here really addressed (it will be expanded hugely in the States as compared to "Skyfall" and already set a new theater count record in Netherlands and the UK).
$1.2 Billion.
That's right, it's not important. That why you've remembered it all these years! :P
About Spectre ? Well, here the reviews I read were about the fact it's a Bond "for the boys". The early script was even a bit too much "for the boys, get it ?" :) And the first notes on IMDB from women are noticeably lower than the men's...
You need to please both women and men to do so much money IMO.
You're right about that. Though, looking at the full breakdown of "SPECTRE" (I'm a member of IMDB-Pro) so far it's way way early to say that this will eventually happen. Moreover, IMDB is by far a men's only club. Secondly, a lot of those early votes are from IMDB-nerds (me included hehe :-P):
I've looked at the female/male notes of the Bond movies on IMDB. Believe me, if you like such trivia, try to guess first before clicking on the spoilers...
So here are the Bond movies for which the female vote on IMDB is more than 0.2 pts below the male vote.
GE
TSWLM
OHMSS
GF
FRWL
wow, wow, wow...
It's almost too straightforward to be true !
but don't expect the analysis to be easy, because here are the Bond movies for which the female vote is higher than the male vote :
AVTAK
Ahem.
And I have nothing against those in the know, I only cringe at times about those, whose posts sound, like they do know everything ... and better, whilst a lot is just personal opinion. That's all.
Given that the first showing didn't begin until 8pm on a Monday, I'd say these are pretty impressive numbers.
This says it does beat SF's whole first day.
Deadline goes with (£4.1M for Spectre, £6.2M for SF) for the whole friday. So IMO, Spectre would have easily beat that on a day.
"People are booking breakfast with Bond before the boardroom, with 6 a.m. screenings filling up," the company said.
http://www.hollywoodreporter.com/news/box-office-spectre-opens-spectacular-834831
From Thomas in the Production Timeline.
Then there is "Furious 7". Greatly 'helped' by the death of Paul Walker. And perhaps a fact that was underestimated by box office predictors. Currently, the film has a 'Certfied Fresh' rating of 81% on RT.
One reason "SPECTRE" still could 'stun' us at the box office, is the fact that it can still sail the waves of the phenomenon that "Skyfall" was. On top of that, an 80% RT rating isn't enough to turn people off and not showing up in the cinema.
Then again, who am I......a ludicrous 'fanboy' :-). An asshole too.
I believe that the examples you've used actually help to make my point from earlier. In terms of films that have created a 'mania' which is necessary for the 'oversize' box office:
1. Jurassic World - this was 100% nostalgia. Everyone in my family saw it and loved it, including myself. It was a throwback to the first one. Brought back memories and all that jazz.......irrespective of reviews. My point from my earlier post about one possible necessary element (positive nostalgia) in order to bring in repeat viewings and the big business
2. Furious - this was 100% about emotional resonance (my other point from earlier). People connected to the Walker situation, irrespective of reviews. Otherwise there was really nothing to differentiate this installment from the previous two (which were arguably better). Walker's death created that resonance
3. SF - this was about two things imho. Emotional resonance (themes about getting old and irrelevant, and also about M's death......continued importance & relevance of Britain in this century) and positive nostalgia (DB5, some of the older Bond tropes such as MP & Q etc., the office....elements from long ago coming back etc.). The reviews in this case were also great, and did not hurt the box office
4. The final element I suggested earlier could create a 'mania' effect is some sort of good or bad controversy - where people just have to see the film. Perhaps 50 Shades of Grey had that and this allowed it to make more money this year than it should....I'm not sure.
5. Oh, there appears to be 5th element as well - some Disney cartoon is almost guaranteed yearly top 5 (e.g. Minions or Inside Out)
----
If a film doesn't have those above elements but is still a good film (with good reviews), then it does excellent business no doubt, but doesn't cross over into the mega $$ (which in this case we can safely say is $1bn+). A recent example is MI-RN, which was very well reviewed and did good business globally but nothing excessive.
SP - does it have any of these elements really? I'm not sure. The reviews for the most part seem to suggest that it is a very good, entertaining Bond film but without anything to really cause that emotional connection. I'm not hearing it in any of the reviews to date (from either MI6 members or from critics). There is a 'nostalgic' aspect since some of the Bond tropes are back in even more effect this time.....but I believe for the general public, SF already brought those back 3 yrs ago.....we (the Bond fans) are just more demanding (e.g. gunbarrel at the start, Bond theme, Blofeld etc.). I don't think those things mean that much for the general public.
I too am a ludicrous fanboy.....
The 250 seater large screen 1 I watched SP in at 7:50 was completely full and in fact the ushers were particularly stressing to check the correct seats were used according to ticket no to avoid handles. There were some which distracted the start sadly.