James Bond has proven he can quickly take down bad guys and get any woman he wants whenever he wants, but when it comes to the box office, 007 is clearly slowing down. The 24th installment, “Spectre”, opened way back in November, and after five long months, has finally reached the $200 million mark in the U.S. In comparison, 2012’s “Skyfall”, which received much better reviews and repeat business, easily crossed $300 million in its first two months.
When Sony/Columbia noticed that “Spectre” was at $199.7 million following President’s Day weekend, studio execs decided they needed to get the film to $200M by expanding from only 47 theaters to 340 the following weekend. That would certainly do the trick, right? However, since “Specrte” had been out on DVD, PPV and VOD for a week and a half, audiences likely thought, “why would I spend $15 to go see a film in theaters when I can watch it at home for as little as $1?” Weekend Gross: $108,423.
Interestingly, entertainment website TheWrap wrote this headline and story on Feb. 25: “‘Spectre’ finally gets to $200 million”. Yahoo! picked-up this article and used the same statement. Problem is – it never got to $200M.
Next came Oscar weekend and the theater count dropped to 92. That Sunday night, “Spectre” surprised many (including yours truly) by winning the Best Original Song Academy Award for Sam Smith’s “Writing’s On the Wall”, which honestly, didn’t deserve a nomination, let alone the award. Smith’s misguided acceptance speech and later apology dominated the social media headlines. And still, not enough tickets were sold that weekend to get to $200M.
Following the Mar 4-6 weekend the total reached $199.9M. And on just 16 screens, “Spectre” took-in $42,000 from Mar 11-13, with the highest per-screen average since Thanksgiving weekend. But that still left it short of the goal. But this weekend, in only 9 theaters, it made $45,000 and officially reached the $200 million milestone – Sony’s first film to do so since “The Amazing Spider-Man 2” in June 2014.
Clearly, someone (or a group of someones) had a clause in his/her contract that involved a bonus if/when the film hit $200 million. Otherwise, why would a studio have gone to all this trouble to drag-out a release schedule just to get to a number?
And now, since “Spectre” finally got to $200M, the studio is celebrating with Martinis: shaken, not stirred.