Spectre earns $73 million in North America: almost beats Skyfall’s numbers

I like the sense of Bond history evoked when the name Ernst Stavro Blofeld was dropped, with his white Angora cat and the scar over his right eye (like Donald Pleasence had in “You Only Live Twice”). It is not out of the realm of possibility that The Martian, when all is said and done, could be looking at over $1 billion in overall box office earnings.

No surprises here. “Spectre” brought in an estimated million in its opening weekend, becoming the second highest-grossing film in the franchise behind “Skyfall”. “It grossed almost $64 million in Britain in its first week of release, shattering the country’s record for the biggest opening”.

The new 007 film “Spectre” and “The Peanuts Movie” both made strong, if not spectacular, debuts despite competition from each other.

Holdovers “The Martian”, “Goosebumps”, and “Bridge of Spies” rounded out the top five, while new opener “Miss You Already”, staring Drew Barrymore and Toni Collette, opened in 384 theaters to only $572,160.

The 39-year-old beauty credits the movie franchise – in which she plays Eve Moneypenny, the secretary to the Head of the Secret Intelligence Service (MI6) – for helping her become more “confident”.

This weekend it followed up its record-breaking opening in the United Kingdom last week by outperforming Skyfall’s opening in Mexico ($4.5m), Brazil ($2.9m), Russian Federation ($5.8m), Belgium ($2.4m), Austria ($2.6m), Hong Kong ($2.4m), Malaysia ($2.3m), Poland ($3.1m) and more.

What do U think – did U see anything in theaters this weekend?? That’s a 30% fall from last weekend, bringing it to $66.4 million domestically and $92.2 million worldwide.

“We are absolutely thrilled by this weekend’s results”, said Gary Barber, MGM’s Chairman and CEO.

As well as “Spectre” did, it was widely expected to do better.

Spectre, which scored $9.1 million on 374 IMAX screens, received a mixed reception from critics, with a 62% approval rating on RottenTomatoes.com. An excellent 86 percent of reviews were positive and 86 percent of moviegoers liked “Peanuts”, according to Rotten Tomatoes, which wrote the film “offers a colorful gateway into the world of its classic characters and a sweetly nostalgic, if relatively unambitious, treat for the adults who grew up with them”. A few older viewers have grumbled that they found the 3D computer animation off-putting after half a century of watching Charlie Brown and Snoopy in hand-drawn 2D.

In limited release, Spotlight starring Michael Keaton, Mark Ruffalo and Rachel McAdams enjoyed a solid start banking $302,000 from five theaters in New York, Los Angeles and Boston.

When it comes to this weekend’s Peanuts audience, 70% were families, which could bode well for both Peanuts and Spectre as it’s very possible the two films share a portion of their audience, possibly bolstering week-to-week returns.