‘Spectre’ shoots to 2nd biggest Bond opening ever

Coming off the worst October since 2007, the industry was looking to this weekend to turn the tide and that it did. Not a record compared to the $88 million haul of “Skyfall” back in 2012.

Internationally, “Spectre” has proved even more successful, with more than 0 million in sales over two weeks.

There has been a lot of speculation surrounding Daniel Craig’s continued association with the James Bond franchise after Spectre, especially after the movie was something of a disappointment to many critics. That’s on par with 2006’s Casino Royale, much better than the “B-” earned by Quantum of Solace and just a hair below Skyfall’s “A”. Its total worldwide gross so far is $223.1 million. It opened to a massive $20.1-M box office in Germany posting the biggest Saturday of all time.

Spectre released worldwide on November 6, and over the weekend managed to rake in over $200. “Because I don’t know another way to do it. However big and grand it is, however boisterous the script is, you look for the truth in it, and you stick to that, and then you can mess around with it”, he explained about his formula for playing Bond. When Skyfall opened in November 2012, it did so unopposed.

The weekend’s No. 3 film was “The Martian”, which added $9.3 million in its sixth weekend.

Sony Pictures’ adaptation of R.L. Stine’s Goosebumps, starring Jack Black, took fourth place with $7 million (down 29%) with $66.4 million grossed in its first month. Overseas, however, the sky is the limit. All four films star Daniel Craig as 007.

Stateside, though, reviews have been mixed, and “Spectre”, unlike “Skyfall”, had competition in its first weekend in theaters with another beloved set of characters – Charlie Brown and Snoopy.

I was close. Off by $8 million for Bond and $5 million for Charles Schultz’s gang.

As for “Peanuts”, its $45 million debut falls at the low end of expectations, which ran from $45 to $55 million. The CG-animated feature earned mostly positive reviews and opening day audiences gave it an “A” CinemaScore. Cooking drama Burnt slipped one place to seventh with $3 million, while The Last Witch Hunter dropped to eighth with $2.6 million, ahead of The Intern at ninth and $1.8 million and Paranormal Activity: The Ghost Dimension freefalling to 10th for $1.6 million. Both films played at around 3,900 theaters, each unseating The Martian, which had stayed on top for more than five weeks while one contender after another burned up in the atmosphere.