It’s Bond, James Bond, Charlie Brown

After a few brutal weekends at the Box office, it took a couple of time-tested franchises to breathe some life into the theatres.

Spectre was the big winner here, earning $73 million becoming the second-biggest Bond opening of all time. It’s the 24th film in a series that has run for 53 years. Amazing.

Domestically, Spectre failed to live up to the record-breaking standard set by Skyfall, which debuted to $88.4 million in 2012 and went on to become the first film in the franchise to earn over $1 billion worldwide. With some tough competition on the horizon, Spectre will most likely fall short of Skyfall’s domestic total of $304.3 million, but it should hit around $200 million

Despite having numerous leading men portraying 007, the franchise continues to chug along and remain successful. Sure Bond has had its share of hits and misses, but lets look at the chart below.

1	Thunderball	UA	$623,832,000	$63,595,658	12/21/65
2	Goldfinger	UA	$552,942,000	$51,081,062	12/22/64
3	Skyfall	Sony	$315,602,300	$304,360,277	11/9/12
4	You Only Live Twice	UA	$299,439,300	$43,084,787	6/13/67
5	Moonraker	MGM	$233,613,400	$70,308,099	6/29/79
6	Die Another Day	MGM	$230,050,800	$160,942,139	11/22/02
7	Tomorrow Never Dies	MGM	$224,439,200	$125,304,276	12/19/97
8	From Russia, with Love	UA	$222,371,000	$24,796,765	4/8/64
9	Diamonds Are Forever	UA	$221,487,900	$43,819,547	12/17/71
10	Casino Royale	Sony	$212,075,200	$167,445,960	11/17/06
11	The World Is Not Enough	MGM	$207,280,700	$126,943,684	11/19/99
12	GoldenEye	MGM	$203,528,900	$106,429,941	11/17/95
13	Quantum of Solace	Sony	$195,570,000	$168,368,427	11/14/08
14	Octopussy	MGM	$179,756,400	$67,893,619	6/10/83
15	The Spy Who Loved Me	UA	$175,172,400	$46,838,673	7/13/77
16	Live and Let Die	UA	$166,695,600	$35,377,836	6/27/73
17	For Your Eyes Only	MGM	$164,438,400	$54,812,802	6/26/81
18	Dr. No	UA	$157,646,000	$16,067,035	5/8/63
19	Never Say Never Again	WB	$146,765,000	$55,432,841	10/7/83
20	On Her Majesty’s Secret Service	UA	$133,760,000	$22,774,493	12/18/69
21	A View to a Kill	MGM	$118,235,300	$50,327,960	5/24/85
22	The Living Daylights	UA	$109,179,100	$51,185,897	7/31/87
23	The Man with the Golden Gun	UA	$93,532,900	$20,972,000	12/18/74
24	License to Kill	UA	$72,826,900	$34,667,015	7/14/89
25	Spectre	Sony	$68,195,400	$70,403,148	11/6/15

For the most part each era performs along the same lines in accordance to its stars. Sure there are outliers (Skyfall) but there are three things you can bank on: Death, Taxes, and the Bond series.

The Peanuts franchise may have a spot historically in our pop culture, but when was the last time they were relevant? Fox took a risk here reintroducing the gang to a new generation but Neil felt the trailer had enough “whimsy” to hit with the family. Charlie an company “hit” to the tune of $45 million, surpassing the $40 million projections by fox.

About 70 percent of Peanuts viewers were families, and with an “A” rating from cinema score, Peanut’s should have a solid second week coming.

This weekend’s No. 3 film was The Martian, which added $9.3 million in its sixth weekend. Dropping a mere 21% in its fourth weekend has grossed an estimated $197.1 million in the United States and Canada.

Goosebumps and Bridge Of Spies rounded out the top five earning $7 million and $6.1 in their fourth weekend respectively.

Three awards contenders also made their debuts in limited release to mixed results. Director Tom McCarthy’s film about the Boston Globe’s Pulitzer Prize-winning investigation into the sex abuse scandal in the Catholic Church, was the strongest of the pack earning an impressive $60,455 per theater average grossing over $300k.

Brooklyn the film adaptation of Irish novelist Colm Toibin’s book of the same name had the best opening week of any film in Ireland since the biopic Michael Collins in 1996, grossing $181K, giving it a $36,200 average

Bleekers street Trumbo, The “Commie” witch hunt Biopic, earned $77,229, Averaging an ok $15,445 per screen.

1. Spectre, $73 million

2. The Peanuts Movie, $45 million

3. The Martian, $9.3 million

4. Goosebumps, $7 million

5. Bridge of Spies, $6.1 million

6. Hotel Transylvania 2, $3.6 million

7. Burnt, $3 million

8. The Last Witch Hunter, $2.7 million

9. The Intern, $1.8 million

10. Paranormal Activity: The Ghost Dimension, $1.7 million

Post Views: 3,021