The new James Bond film, Quantum of Solace, broke
box office records for the spy film franchise. This past weekend, the film racked up $70.4 million in box office receipts.
That far exceeds the $60M which Hollywood expected. It's also blows away by 73% the $40.8M North American weekend debut of Daniel Craig's James Bond in MGM/Sony's Casino Royale (November 2006), and easily beats the $47.1M bow of Die Another Day (November 2002) that used to be the best ever. Quantum's success must be due to either pent-up demand for Hollywood's holiday season product or Daniel Craig's new-found popularity or both. Because the new Bond-as-Bourne's reviews were dismal (only 35% positive from top critics on Rotten Tomatoes as opposed to 95% for its predecessor). But it appears this 22nd Bond's delayed U.S. debut -- three weeks after its October 31st bow in the UK and two weeks after most of the world -- proved to be a savvy distribution and marketing move for the new pic. Even though U.S. Bond fans have been bitching and moaning all over the Internet that they didn't want to wait so long to see the film, which so far has made a staggering $251M internationally from 73 territories, or $322M worldwide. The pic is over halfway towards Casino Royale's global $599.2M after coming off a $126.5M weekend overseas.
And it has yet to open in Japan, Australia and Spain.
We saw the film Friday and loved it. Daniel Craig looks fabulous: he's quite angsty over the death of his girlfriend in the first movie, Casino Royale, and hellbent on revenge. Our two favorite scenes were 1) the opening car chase in the hills around Siena, Italy and 2) the intrigue and action-laden night at the opera. A high-tech version of Puccini's Tosca is being performed, which makes the perfect backdrop for an J.J. Abrams-worthy evening of spying. We also loved Judi Densch: she's the best M the series has ever had, hands down.
