Skyfall Becomes the Highest Grossing Movie of All Time in Britain

Deadline reports that Skyfall surpassed Avatar yesterday to become the UK's highest grossing movie of all time. That's pretty impressive! In 40 days of release, it's earned £94,277,612, or $151,795,059, in the United Kingdom. The 23rd James Bond film has earned more than $245 million so far at the U.S. box office, and more than $870 million worldwide, all of which makes it a massive hit. The press has been calling it the biggest Bond ever, but since they're not adjusting for inflation, that's really not true. Thunderball was even bigger in 1965! (In 2012 dollars, it did pass $1 billion.) But Skyfall's making a mint, and has a chance at crossing the elusive billion dollar mark globally. In the global market, however, it should be noted that it's nowhere near Avatar's record of $2.8 billion.

Tinker Tailor Soldier Spy Does Well in North American Expansion

Tomas Alfredson's Tinker Tailor Soldier Spy, easily one of the best spy movies of recent years, expanded into more markets in North America this weekend, and entered the Top 10 at the box office at number 9... on just 809 screens, far fewer than any other film in the Top 10. That means it averaged an impressive $7,129 per screen (according to Box Office Mojo), the second highest per-screen average on the chart, well ahead of number 2 film Mission: Impossible - Ghost Protocol. The Hollywood Reporter reports that "Tinker Tailor flourished in surburban markets--a theater in the surburbs north of Oklahama City was No. 5 in the country--as well as continuing to thrive in holdover art house locations." It's good to hear that there's demand for cerebral John le Carré adaptation outside of big cities, bearing out Roger Ebert's recent essay which pointed out things that should be obvious and partly blamed the 2011 box office slump on Hollywood's stupid misconception that "small-town moviegoers don't like 'art movies.'" I'm sure there's a lot more demand for the film in the markets it still hasn't opened in, too. Focus Features will continue to expand Tinker Tailor Soldier Spy in the weeks ahead, so if it hasn't played in your town yet, just be patient. It will. And you've got something truly special to look forward to!

Read my review of Tinker Tailor Soldier Spy (2011) here.
Read my introduction to George Smiley here.

Johnny English Hasn't Lost His Touch

The sequel whose very existence baffles America (where the original made only a small fraction of its $160 million worldwide cume) has proven that there's still an appetite (overseas, anyway) for Rowan Atkinson's bumbling secret agent, Johnny English—even eight years later. Deadline reports that the belated spy spoof sequel Johnny English Reborn opened to an impressive $11.7 million in fifteen territories overseas (and opening at number one in 13 of them), making it the biggest opening of any Rowan Atkinson movie to date. The trade blog estimates that that opening puts the sequel "on track to do north of $150 million overseas." And it hasn't even opened in the UK yet, where Atkinson is huge. (That happens on October 7.) I'm glad to hear that, and looking forward to seeing the movie when it comes out in the US on October 28; I loved the first one. As spy spoofs go, it may not rank up there with the OSS 117 movies, but it's a far cry better than the Austin Powers sequels. And the makers of Johnny English clearly understood what made the Peter Sellers Pink Panther movies work better than the makers of the Steve Martin attempts! The original Johnny English was a better Pink Panther movie than either of those. I hope the sequel lives up to it.

Tradecraft: Knight And Day Fox's Top 2010 Earner

When it opened softly in the US last summer, Knight and Day was immediately written off as a failure in the American press—and Tom Cruise's career publicly pronounced dead.  Despite that stigma, the film has already earned some vindication by going on to gross an impressive $262 million worldwide, putting it ahead of celebrated summer hits, like Grown Ups.  Now, there's even further vindication for Knight and Day.  According to Deadline, it's turned out to be 20th Century Fox's highest grossing film of 2010.  (Avatar technically earned the studio more money this year, but it was a 2009 release.)  Granted, it hasn't been a great year for Fox, but $262 million is nothing to scoff at.  It's clear that Cruise and Cameron Diaz are certainly still forces to be reckoned with at the international box office, and that rumors of Crusie's career's demise proved to be greatly exaggerated.  I'm glad for this film's vindication, because I found it to be a very entertaining spy spoof.  Knight and Day came out on DVD and Blu-ray/DVD combo last week.

Read my review of the Knight and Day Blu-ray here.

Tradecraft: Knight And Day Vindicated

After being branded such a flop that it warranted a radical rethinking for the new Mission: Impossible movie (the positive upshot of which is that we might finally end up with more of a team movie instead of a star vehicle!), it turns out (as I've contended before) that the Tom Cruise/Cameron Diaz spy parody Knight and Day (review here) didn't do so badly after all.  In a Deadline story about another, unrelated Cruise project, Mike Fleming reports:

[It's] worth nothing that by the time Knight and Day completes its run in Japan, the film will wind up grossing better than $264 million worldwide. Because the picture did only around $69 million domestic, Cruise and Cameron Diaz got a pretty good drubbing. But the number is comparable to films like the Adam Sandler comedy Grown Ups, which was considered a summer hit. That film had a strong opening weekend and did most of its business domestic, but  Knight and Day did better overseas. That overseas launch came later because of the World Cup.

Good to set the record straight, anyway. As previously reported, Knight and Day (which was a lot of fun!) comes out on DVD and Blu-ray on November 30.

Avatar Passes Thunderball At All-Time Box Office

People are very quick to hail James Cameron's Avatar as the biggest movie of all time thanks to its astounding worldwide gross of $1.86 billion.  Domestically, it currently stands at Number 2 with $558 million so far, and is certain to beat Titanic's $600 million very soon.  But those numbers are just dollars, and as most movie buffs know (and the media is just catching on to), they don't begin to reflect what's truly "the biggest movie of all time" in terms of eyeballs.  People just don't flock to the movies anymore in the numbers they did in the Thirties, Sixties or even Eighties.  But ticket prices have shot up (more than 50% since 1997 alone, when Titanic opened the same day as Tomorrow Never Dies, making the latter the only Bond movie of the Brosnan or Craig era not to hit the Number 1 spot at the Box Office*) and inflation has made the 1965 dollar unrecognizable.  So while Avatar may have made more cash than Star Wars or E.T. in 2010 dollars, it hasn't been seen by nearly as many people.  Box Office Mojo keeps score of the highest grossing movies of all time with their grosses adjusted for inflation, and the numbers are quite different.  It will come as no surprise to Bond fans to learn that Goldfinger and Thunderball both crack the Top 50 on this list.  While Daniel Craig's Bond movies may be the "biggest Bonds ever" in terms of the same dollars that give Avatar the crown, they don't begin to duplicate the utter phenomenon of Bondmania that swept the nation and the world in the mid-Sixties.  While Moore, Brosnan and Craig all set records in their eras, none of their films make the Top 100 list once adjusted for inflation.

Anyway, Avatar has just surpassed Thunderball on that list, knocking the biggest Bond ever down a notch to Number 27 with $558,008,000.  (Yes, that means that Avatar is really only the twenty-sixth biggest movie of all-time, not the biggest.  That undisputed honor belongs to Gone With the Wind, and likely always will, with only the original Star Wars coming close to it for Number 2.)  But Thunderball still remains ahead of such gargantuan modern-day blockbusters as The Dark Knight and Spider-man, which isn't too shabby! Goldfinger clocks in at Number 41, ahead of both the Spider-man sequels.  And both of these Connery come in well ahead of all the Lord of the Rings movies, all the Harry Potter movies and all the Pirates of the Caribbean movies.  It's just good to put things in perspective sometimes, and good for Bond fans (while certainly not denying the character's undying popularity with contemporary audiences) to reflect on what an unstoppable juggernaut the franchise was at its truly dizzying peak.

*Casino Royale didn't open at Number 1 either, thanks to stiff competition from Happy Feet, but it did manage to beat out Happy Feet for the Number 1 spot over the Thanksgiving weekend in 2006.  Tomorrow Never Dies, while it was a big hit and did very respectable numbers, never managed that feat with Titanic.

Brosnan Vs. Craig At UK Box Office

While Daniel Craig's Quantum of Solace has just enjoyed the biggest opening of all time in Britain, former Bond Pierce Brosnan has quietly acheived another U.K. box office milestone, according to Variety: his latest film, Mama Mia!, has just surpassed Titanic become the highest grossing film of all time over there. Can Quantum top it? As Lulu would say (er, sing), we shall see...

Bond Breaks Box Office Records In UK

Deadline Hollywood reports that Quantum of Solace enjoyed the largest Friday UK opening in box office history last night, netting £4.94 million ($8 million). The previous record holder was Harry Potter and the Goblet of Fire with £4 million. By comparison, Casino Royale made £2.9 million on its opening day, so Craig's second Bond picture is so far vastly outpacing his first.

Tradecraft: Quantum Of Blogging

All the trade blogs have something to say about Quantum of Solace these days.

Steven Zeitchik of the Hollywood Reporter's Risky Biz Blog examines the movie from an interesting environmental aspect. Does the new Bond film point the direction toward the next generation of action movie villainy?

Nikki Finke at Deadline Hollywood seems to have a new story everyday about the anticipation factor for Daniel Craig's second 007 outing. Earlier this week she reported that with three weeks still to go (now two), Sony's own tracking indicated that Quantum of Solace had double the "wannasee" factor going for it than Casino Royale did. Could be be looking at a Bourne Supremacy or even The Dark Knight scenario of a sequel vastly outgrossing its predecessor? I hope so! And I'm sure Sony does too, because the same story goes on to reveal that some rival studios are pinning the new Bond movie as the priciest film of all time, dollars-per-minute.

Today Nikki adds that Quantum is currently leading MovieTickets.com's online advance ticket sales, ahead of heavy hitters like High School Musical 3 and Twilight!

Tradecraft: Burn Notice Burns Up The Ratings

Variety reports that Burn Notice scored big ratings with its second season debut last week. In addition to being the top-rated cable program Thursday night, Burn Notice also managed to "top its firstrun ABC and CBS competition in key demos," according to the trade. It was the second-best score for a scripted cable series this year, behind USA's own Monk finale in February. Here are all the stats, including some that will probably mean nothing to anyone outside the TV industry: "According to Nielsen nationals, Burn Notice averaged a hot 1.8 rating/6 share among adults 18-49 and 5.39 million viewers overall, a 20% gain in the demo and a 35% improvement in overall audience vs. its series debut of last summer."

Site News... and More Royale

Sorry it’s been so long since I’ve updated. It’s been a slow week for fictional spy news (though a fascinating, if sad, week for the real stuff...), but I’ll try to make it up to you this week with lots of new reviews. Keep checking back this week and next for reviews of Alias: Season 5, the Daniel Craig vehicle Archangel (not to be confused with the Alex Rider adventure of more or less the same name!), Volume 2 of Kate Westbrook’s Moneypenny Diaries series, and, hopefully, The Good Shepherd.

Bond collectors should also keep their eyes peeled, because I’ll be posting a lengthy third Casino Royale Magazine Roundup shortly!

Speaking of Casino Royale, I saw it a fifth time this past weekend, and it really holds up. Die Another Day got worse each time I saw it (which was only twice in the theater); Casino Royale, thankfully, gets better. I first saw DAD at the premiere, with Pierce and Halle and Michael and Barbara in attendance (yeah, I did it. I used first names. That’s just the kind of experience it was!), with a million dollar afterparty that converted the Shrine Auditorium into an ice palace complete with ice sculptures, Bond Girl go-go dancers, open bars and more. I’ll admit, the spectacle of the evening did make me see the movie through slightly rose-colored glasses the first time. (Although even at the party, I was conceding to my friend that we had slipped dangerously into Moonraker territory.) It could only be downhill from there, and with that particular movie, it was a treacherous, icy slope... if you'll forgive the pun.

While I missed out on the spectacle of a Casino Royale premiere, it was exhilarating sneaking my way into a press screening and seeing it in advance, so I was still mistrustful of my own first impressions. Luckily, subsequent viewings over the next two consecutive evenings allayed my fears, and I still stand by the review I wrote at that point. Having seen it twice more still, each time with at least a week in between screenings, if anything it’s getting better. The gripes I had then no longer bother me so much. Casino Royale is a damn good Bond movie, and Daniel Craig is a damn good Bond.

I’ll aim to see the movie at least twice more in the theater.

It’s holding up at the Box Office, too. While it’s a shame CR never got to enjoy a weekend atop the chart, it consistently hit Number 1 on weeknights during its first three weeks. (And even on one Friday, right after Thanksgiving!) It may not have opened quite as strongly as DAD in America, but it’s holding on better. CR has shown less weekly erosion than its predecessor, and managed to hold the #4 spot despite the onslaught of four new major releases this past weekend. It’s a long shot, but it just may yet equal or overtake DAD at the American Box Office if it manages to stick around long enough. And internationally, it remains the movie to beat. (Yes, even those pesky penguins can't touch it overseas!)

Ca$ino Royale: License To Print Money

Casino Royale finally edged out Happy Feet to become the Number One movie in America over the Thanksgiving holiday earning $7,625,000 on Thursday and upping its cumulative total to $63,450,000. Their positions are likely to change again over the weekend, when kids' matinees give the edge to animation. The two movies are still neck-and-neck, though, easily fending off newcomers like Deja Vu and The Fountain.

Casino Royale Opens #2 At US Box Office with $40 Million

According to Box Office Mojo, Casino Royale made $42,600,000 at the American Box Office this weekend, which was enough for the Number Two spot, behind the computer animated kids' penguin movie Happy Feet. In comparison, Die Another Day earned $47,072,040 its opening weekend in 2002. So 007's taken a bit of a drop, but that's not surprising given the changing of the guard in the title role and the change in tone for the series. Still, $40 million is quite an impressive opening, and certainly enough to make Daniel Craig officially a movie star! Sony's vice chairman, Jeff Blake, said "I think a $40 million-plus start for a new series of Bonds with Daniel Craig is a great beginning."

Casino Royale also impressively pulled in another $42.2 million internationally this weekend.

In honor of Casino Royale, Box Office Mojo has also posted some relevant box office stats. Check out their list of spy movies' earnings, and of the James Bond series.