Blitz
<Bronze Donator>
- 5,977
- 6,643
I agree I think Spectre sucking was a huge reason this bombed, along with the run time.In case you guys missed how movie the movie business works, the initial ticket sales have almost nothing to do with the quality of the movie. Even bad professional reviews and bad early audience reviews have little impact when compared to the weight of the marketing (to use a general term that includes the pull of the IP and of the cast/crew, the money spent on advertisements, the number of screens the film releases to, etc). Word of mouth has an impact past the initial release for the staying power of the film (how long and how fat the tail).
In the particular case of No Time to Die, both the professional and the audience reviews are solid enough to ensure decent staying power (84% / 88% on Rotten Tomatoes, 68 / 6.3 on Metacritics - most people think it's ok, not a lot think its great), but if anything hurt the initial ticket sales of this new Bond, it's the previous Bond (63% / 61% on RT, 60 / 6.8 on MC - the much lower audience RT score yet higher MC score must mean it's a more divisive entry, a few people really enjoyed that almost abstract mess).
Spectre being kinda lame has almost certainly more impact than the fact a plot element seems to be a rivalry between Bond and a black female agent or that an unexpected writer got on board.
Also, Angerz and Goatface make a good point about the length of the movie and the impact it has on the way it is shown in theaters. I am not sure all multiplex operators are keen on the idea of having half their screens be the new Bond movie because of its length. I remember there were some drama back in the days of Titanic : some theaters were showing it at 25 fps instead of 24, because the 10 minutes it saved allowed them to fit an extra screening in their schedule !
I would not discount the rumblings of it looking like woke trash though. A big group of us guys are usually pretty excited to go see Bond movies, and no one was overly interested in this one. Part of that is Spectre being underwhelming, the other is just the non-stop rumblings of "changing Bond", and a black female 007 or whatever. It just immediately puts a questionable tint on things. It's anecdotal, but I would not underestimate the middle-class dad who sees that shit and rolls his eyes and decides he doesn't need to see Bond again.