Box Office: ‘Spectre’ Takes #1 With $70 Million, Earns Nearly $300 Million Worldwide

Update: Finals numbers have came in and "Spectre" actually opened to $70 million. That’s 20% down from the opening of "Skyfall" in the U.S. You can almost guarantee "Spectre" won’t hit $200 million stateside and that’s going to affect the overall tally. See some deeper predictions below that are only strengthened by this new info.

The U.S. box-office, where you go from the worst grossing weekend of the year (last week), to one of the strongest, with an overall increase of 148% in ticket sales. Of course, that’s because you have the longest running film franchise of all time and one of the biggest movie brands running: James Bond. As expected the latest 007 film, “Spectre,” cleaned up at the box-office, grossing a muscular $73 million in its opening frame. After ten days, the picture has grossed nearly $300 million worldwide ($296.1M to be exact) and is currently the eighth highest grossing Bond film of all time. “Spectre” was the second highest opening of a James Bond movie ever in the U.S. after “Skyfall” and these are terrific numbers, but the early math shows a film that could be far from its target mark of the $1 billion gross that its predecessor scored. “Spectre” was down 17.3% from the $88.3 million debut “Skyfall” soared to in 2012. That’s a much bigger drop than the gap between debut openings of “Avengers” and ‘Age Of Ultron’ (for example) which was only down 7.8% between movies. ‘Ultron’ wound up doing gangbusters numbers overall, but domestically was still off the mark from "The Avengers" by -26.3%.

While “Skyfall” is already doing killer numbers internationally, if the domestic totals are commensurate to the mathematical trends that hit the ‘Avengers’ sequel, we could see a James Bond film that doesn’t crack $200 million domestically (“Skyfall” reached $304 million). These are just early, early numbers of course, but I’m pretty positive in predicting that “Spectre” will fall short of the worldwide $1.108 billion “Skyfall” earned three years ago. Of course we shall see and the international boon could compensate for any stateside dip. In its favor, while critical reaction was pretty mixed (the 63% Rotten Tomatoes score is even lower than the much maligned “Quantum Of Solace”), audiences gave it an A- Cinemascore.

READ MORE: Sam Mendes Talks His Future With 007, Bond Producer Expects Daniel Craig To Return

20th Century Fox’s “The Peanuts Movie” was off to a good start earning $45 million in its first week of release. It’s a solid start for a non-sequel, and successfully reestablishes the brand for a new generation of kids. An A-grade Cinemascore bodes well for the weeks ahead. Holding strong at the #3 position was Fox’s “The Martian” which is likely going to be one of the most successful films of the fall. By next weekend "The Martian" will have cleared the $200 million mark domestically and worldwide it’s at $458 million and definitely on its way to surpass $500M once it opens up in China (and Japan). “The Martian” is now Ridley Scott’s highest grossing film ever, both globally and domestically having surpassed the previous record holder, “The Gladiator.” With even greater clout to his name now, it’s no wonder Scott Bigfoot stomped “Alien 5” out of existence (because let’s face it, that’s what likely happened).

“Goosebumps," "Bridge of Spies” and "Hotel Transylvania 2” are continuing to do solid business and demonstrating great holds at the box-office (-29.4%, -27.5% and -39.4% respectively; great numbers). There’s a possible silver lining for The Weinstein Company’s “Burnt” which was looking like an early Thanksgiving turkey in its first week of release. However, week two has shown a drop of only -40.0% and the film has already made $10 million at home. If it sticks in theaters and the top ten for a few weeks, maybe TWC could actually make a nickel on it.

Who would have thought Warner Bros.’ “The Intern” would make $71 million domestically and $180 million worldwide? Maybe Nancy Meyers had better start thinking of a sequel for her Robert De Niro and Anne Hathaway-starring comedy. While “The Last Witch Hunter” has shown a decent hold, at $23 million after three weeks for a film that should have performed as a mid-level genre tentpole, we assume Lionsgate (which didn’t reveal the budget on the film) will take a bath on that one. Like a lot of “stars” these days, Vin Diesel just doesn’t have the same box-office mojo outside of his big four-quadrant franchise “Fast And Furious.”

As predicted “Our Brand Is Crisis” fell out of the top ten after one weekend and “Crimson Peak,” which didn’t even crack $30 million domestically, finally slid out of the main ten frame after four weeks. Its interesting to note that Focus Features’ “Suffragette” has really struggled in limited release. Its theater count recently jumped +354.3%, but it’s still doing ho-hum business. Similar things are going on with A24’s “Room” which did well in its opening weekend, but isn’t exactly doing gangbusters speciality money yet. How does that change the Oscar race? Frankly, it may not do a thing as both pictures are probably poised for big nominations regardless, but it’s worth keeping an eye on. And after its initial failure in wide release, "Steve Jobs" has drastically cut its theater count (it’s now at 421 screens) and Universal will likely keep it to that number until Golden Globes or critics guilds begin anointing the film.

In limited release, Open Road’s critically acclaimed “Spotlight” easily won the specialty market, earning $302,276 from five theaters for an excellent $60,455 per screen average, the third highest of 2015. While nowhere near as high, Fox Searchlight’s “Brooklyn” grossed a very healthy $181,000 from five screens for a $36,200 PSA which is in the top 10 for 2015’s best per screen average scores. Bleeker Street Films’ “Trumbo” fared far less successfully, but a $15,446 PSA is still stronger than some recent releases that couldn’t crack the acceptable 10K mark. Frederick Wiseman‘s "In Jackson Heights" did similar numbers with a $15,150 PSA while “Peggy Guggenheim Art Addict” ($11,129 PSA) and "Theeb" ($7,250 PSA) trailed behind.

READ MORE: Interview: Tom McCarthy Talks ‘Spotlight,’ State Of Journalism, ‘The Wire’ & More

1. Spectre — $73,000,000
2. The Peanuts Movie — $45,000,000
3. The Martian — $9,300,000 ($197,067,346)
4. Goosebumps — $6,965,000 ($66,440,954)
5. Bridge of Spies — $6,086,000 ($54,971,952)
6. Hotel Transylvania 2 — $3,550,000 ($161,293,404)
7. Burnt — $3,003,000 ($10,211,287)
8. The Last Witch Hunter — $2,650,000 ($23,571,701)
9. The Intern — $1,810,000 ($71,407,251)
10. Paranormal Activity: The Ghost Dimension — $1,650,000 ($16,281,378)