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Are we back to this childish argument? It was that mediocre and it did sell that many tickets. The Transformer films are dogshit but they consistently cruise past the billion dollar mark whereas The Wicker Man made $58k. Go figure.
To save any of you bothering to rank the Bond films ever again here are the rankings according to @BondJasonBond006's definitive 'the more money it takes the better it is' algorithm:
http://www.boxofficemojo.com/franchises/chart/?id=jamesbond.htm
DAD in 6th and OHMSS in 21st. You can't argue with facts folks.
Thought this might be of Interest, I love the fact t that the Bond films
Make on average $8.6 3 a second.
Even less impressed. Try scrolling down to the inflation adjusted list I was quoting from then come back.
IMHO SP was awful. It actually turned me off the film franchise until such a time as talented writers are employed & another director found. I guess they'll not miss my few quid though.
This is exactly it. All of us on here contribute about 0.001% of the takings for a Bond film so our opinion is utterly worthless to the studio and EON.
If Joe Public has no problem with Blofeld as Bond's step brother and still comes through the doors to the tune of $800 then everyone's happy.
Our gripes and disappointments are, in Tiger's phrase, 'as of little account as sparrow's tears.'
Id blame marketing and bad release date.
Spectre was too close to starwars and the hunger games. A month latter and things eoyld have Been better but marketing was the biggest villain.
Ultimately, this film didn't catch fire in the North American market, despite high expectations for it pre-release, as the successor to SF, which was very well received. It was generally lampooned by the media and forgotten by much of the audience. The marketing was on par with SF stateside, but it didn't have the draw of Adele's title track, which received tons of airplay in 2012. The 3 yr gap didn't have anything to do with it (imho) as that is par for the course for major blockbuster films anyway (it didn't hurt Nolan's trilogy for example). There aren't any excuses for why the film underperformed.
Although obviously had it been a better film that would certainly have helped. There was practically zero word of mouth for SP whereas everyone was going mental for SF at the time.
C'est la vie. If the movie business was predictable no one would ever make a flop would they?
However, SP underperformed in the North American market imho (based on the inflation adjusted boxofficemojo stats which you posted). As the previous poster noted, it was the lowest grossing Bond (inflation adjusted) in the US since Dalton's releases. That's saying something, given how relatively unpopular Dalton was stateside, and even more surprising given that SP followed the behemoth that was SF. Also, as I mentioned, that inflation adjusted number is probably skewed upwards by the IMAX component, which none of the films up to SF had the benefit of.
Outside of North America, it performed quite well, and on par with (or just under) SF.
Look at the Brozza films - $211.3m, $233.1m, $215.2m, $238.9m - a popular Bond stateside and his totals pretty much flatline same as Craig who is also reasonably popular.
It seems that in recent years, for an actor the public take to in an average Bond film, somewhere around the $215- $220m mark is about the standard so SP is down on that but its SF overachieving that's the true anomaly. And more worryingly why did none of those extra people who watched SF come back next time round?
Of course it wouldnt matter that much if it was down a bit on SF's total if they hadnt pissed away the GDP of the average African country in making it.
RE: your question about why much of the 'new' audience that loved SF didn't come back for SP: In my humble opinion it's because SF had, for lack of a better word, soul. SP did not. It was 'flat' and 'by the numbers'. There was nothing which resonated and no heft to the story, either in the way it was written, or in the way that it was acted.
The 'so what?' or 'why should I care?' was not answered with the latest film imho. In SF, it most certainly was. People cared when Judi's M bit the bullet and they cared about Bardem's Silva and his hatred for her. They connected with the premise emotionally and that gave it 'legs' at the US box office.
I should change my comment above to read 'slightly'. Thanks for pointing it out.
While this is may all be true, @TheWizardOfIce makes a very fair point when he notes that it's SF that is the anomaly in all this. To position SP as a failure is to ignore the fact that SF is a 'one off'. Clearly SP didn't resonate on the same level SF did, but it made a bucket load of money and resonated enough to be a big hitter on DVD and Blu-Ray. I do think it has many fans out there. It's a bit like saying 'Bad' was failure. It wasn't, but it followed an anomaly in Thriller.
Having said that , ticket sales for SP were down even on QoS.
Bottom line: given it was essentially a continuation story to SF, there was an almost unheard off decline in North American box office revenues. QoS, while generally poorly received in comparison to CR, did almost as well at the US box office.
My personal take on the Craig era is as follows:
CR - a Fleming Bond film wonderfully executed
QoS - a Bourne Bond film with average execution
SF - a Nolan Bond film wonderfully executed
SP - a formula Bond film poorly executed
If they want to go back to 'formula', they'd better execute better next time, since it's a premise that we all know very well, & consequently there is very little margin for mediocrity.
Yes but to know that you need to see it. For whatever reasons SF went stratospheric, yet in the US all those extra people who went to see SF didnt come back for SP. Now was that just down to good word of mouth/reviews of SF and bad WOM/reviews of SP?
Did SF have so many things going for it that some people who dont usually go to see Bond, or havent for years, actually went due to all the hype but were underwhelmed and therefore didnt come back? Or did SP not get anywhere near the repeat business? Its strange that in the rest of the world SP did pretty much the same business as SF.
Given Bond's iconic status and stature, I think it would be temporary. Bond did lose his appeal from time to time. He always came back.
SP in contrast got blasted in the US by critics prior to its release, despite decent UK reviews. Speaking only from personal experience, those I know who are not major Bond fans and who were quite taken with SF were not impressed with SP. The most common criticism I received (not in so many words) was that it was terribly cliched. I always survey people on Bond films to get a feel for their thoughts. With QoS, the remarks were that it wasn't as good as CR but I recall Craig being unanimously praised. So in general, the comments mirrored the overall views expressed by fans on this site.
@Creasy47, SP did not do as well as QoS stateside on a ticket sales basis. The numbers are as follows:
Inflation adjusted gross (from boxofficemojo):
$199.2m - SP
$203.1m - QoS
On a ticket sales basis, I believe they are both very close at about 23m tickets (with QoS selling about 500K more). It's difficult to compare the revenue drop week to week because they were released at different times (with SP having its Thanksgiving boost in weekend 4 vs. QoS on weekend 3).
Here is the budget vs. worldwide gross numbers for the Bond films (inflation adjusted). While this is increasingly inaccurate the further back in time one goes, the budget to gross % should be reasonably valid since they are both measured in constant $$. They've got SP's budget at $300M, but that is the unadjusted figure before sponsor and marketing incentives. I think it's actually $245 to $250M.
Note the reported budgets for CR & GE (inflation adjusted) vs. all the other films that have come since then.
The current regime? Not so much. From mid-2013 to spring 2014 (based on information from the Sony hacks), it seems as if John Logan and Sam Mendes were left alone without a lot of adult supervision.
Agreed. I have wondered what Cubby would have thought about the direction taken.
firstly, as a nation GBs influence is declining so its an interesting discussion re how long Bond can be relevant within a long term dynamic where GB is not a major player in the same way it was when the novels were written. (we cant even build power stations on our own) This situation has been referenced within some of the movies but there is a danger that Bond could come over as an out of date character (just a thought)
also, culturally in the West, we are within an era where team working and joint partnerships are the in thing. We see this trend refelcted in the superhero movies for example and the whole premise of Star Trek. (the end of SP was a weak attempt at introducing this team spirit IMHO)
I am not for one min suggesting that Bond will lose appeal but it should be recognised that, in a sense, the franchise is swimming up stream.
In such a scenario, there could still be demand for a lone wolf. A beacon of righteousness, no matter how personally flawed or how potentially self defeating he is.
This is potentially fertile ground for a lone warrior who does things his way and defies the odds. A hero's journey. Combine that with traditional English charm, charisma, wit, a stiff upper lip, worldliness & intellectual heft and you have a winning combination for the ages. That is why James Bond will be forever imho.