While the last two James Bond films have been solid hits in the United States with box-office grosses of around $ 160 million each, everywhere else in the world they have been huge events.
Outside the U.S., the two previous films earned about $ 420 million each. In 2008, “Quantum of Solace” was nearly as big a hit as ‘The Dark Knight’ and the fourth ‘Indiana Jones’, and earned a lot more than either “Iron Man” or “Twilight”.
Now the franchise is set to break records again as after just ten days of release in global markets, many of which only got the film this past Friday, the newest Bond feature “Skyfall” has hauled in a whopping $ 287 million. In fact $ 157 million of that came from just the last three days alone.
“Skyfall” is pacing far ahead of the last two Bond films in most markets, and in a few cases has scored the biggest opening of the year. The film’s success has helped push Sony Pictures Releasing International to their best year ever with revenues of $ 2.16 billion.
Reviews for the film have been excellent across the board, including my own review. On critic aggregate sites Rotten Tomatoes and Metacritic, the film is tracking a few points ahead of “Casino Royale” at present and is easily amongst the best films of the year.
More reliable than the Tomato-meter is Rotten Tomatoes’ average rating. On that, the film is presently scoring 8.4/10 which is the second highest score for the year and one it shares with only “Argo” and “Amour”. The unanimously acclaimed doco “How to Survive a Plague” with 8.7/10 is the only film this year to top that.
On Metacritic it’s currently sitting at 85/100 and 14th for the year behind “Life of Pi” with 88/100, and the likes of “Argo,” “Beasts of the Southern Wild” & “The Master” at 86/100. At 85/100 it’s on par with “Holy Motors” and one point ahead of “Looper,” “Moonrise Kingdom” and “Silver Linings Playbook” at 84/100.
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