Bond is back, and he’s bigger than ever.
Spectre, reteaming director Sam Mendes and actor Daniel Craig, has scored the biggest seven-day opening of all time in the U.K. with $63.8 million. More impressively, it made slightly more than Skyfall for the weekend itself. In 2012, Skyfall scored a three-day debut of $32.5 million.
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All told, the 24th installment in the iconic film franchise earned $80.4 million from its first six territories for Sony, MGM and Eon Productions, breaking records everywhere. In the U.K., it is playing in 647 theaters and on 2,500 screens, making it the widest release of all time. Spectre opens in North America on Nov. 6.
There’s been heated speculation as to whether Spectre will match the blockbuster success of Mendes’ Skyfall, which became the first Bond film to cross $1 billion at the worldwide box office (it topped out at $1.1 billion globally). In the U.K., it remains the top-grossing movie of all time with $161 million in ticket sales.
So far, Spectre is holding its own. Its $3.7 opening in the Netherlands surpassed the previous record set by Skyfall. Including previews, it has grossed $3.9 million to date. And in Denmark, it scored the top three-day opening of all time with $4.2 million.
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Spectre is delivering big results for Imax, becoming the first title in history to cross $100,000 in terms of location average, or $105,000 from 47 theaters.
Christoph Waltz joins the franchise as the villain, while Lea Seydoux and Monica Belluci are the latest Bond girls. Ben Whishaw plays Q.
The film’s performance in the U.K. is welcome news for Hollywood, which is looking to Spectre to restore order to the North American box office, which has been ravaged by a string of high-profile misses. Skyfall debuted to $88 million, and analysts are hoping Spectre can near that mark.
