"Bond 23" delayed indefinitely

[JoeZhang]

US box office makes or breaks virtually all movies made by US studios. Studios get a smaller cut of international proceeds. So even if a movie makes a lot of money overseas, if it bombs in the US it may well not get a sequel as the US is the primary film market.

But Bond isn't one of them - the historical context is that Bond films makes more overseas than in the US. So for an untried property, what you say is true. For Bond - not so much, as the expectation is that the overseas take will be larger than the US.

 

[Cicero]

^ Even excluding the older pictures, the two most recent movies weren't especially successful. All of Brosnan's films outperformed Quantum of Solace, and Die Another Day and Tomorrow Never Dies both earned more than Casino Royale.

Only those relatively modern pictures:

1. Die Another Day - $210 million
2. Tomorrow Never Dies - $209 million
3. Casino Royale - $194 million
4. The World Is Not Enough - $191 million
5. Goldeneye - $187 million
6. Quantum of Solace - $178 million

Why do some people only use US figures for films, the US market whilst very important is not the be all and end all. In the case of Casino Royale for comparrison according to box office mojo

US takings US$167.4m

Rest of world US$426.8m of which US$105.9m game from one market the UK. So the UK with a population ~20% of the US managed to take about 75% of the US takings.

Overall takings US$594.2m Budget US$150m So it made a decent profit. And I'm sure Bond 23 next year will be very succesful being as it's the 50th Anniversary of Bond films.

I use North American box office figures because the U.S. and Canadian movie-going populations are more stable than the aggregate overseas movie-going population (as are North American ticket prices). The massive growth seen in the overseas market in the last two decades makes comparison between international grosses of movies released in different years heavily biased in favor of newer movies, which defeats the main purpose of comparison.

Regarding deflation, I used a ticket price-based calculator, which means that my lists above essentially compare attendance rather than dollars.

Yes but by only using US figures you can make it look like the film was a flop. After all a taking of US$167m on a budget of US$150m would be considered a flop. However using the Worldwide takings of US$593m all of a sudden it's no longer a flop but a success.

Sometimes, flops due to poor North American box office performance despite strong attendance overseas. The Golden Compass is a good example: A misjudged domestic marketing campaign resulted in North American box office receipts just over $70 million. Even though its overseas earnings were more than four times greater, the profit-sharing model used for the picture caused New Line to make only $50 million outside the U.S. and Canada, precipitating the collapse of the studio.

The original point is the Craig films weren't succesful as the Brosnan films, when in fact they were. They might not have been as succesful in the US but that distinction wasn't made.

Unfortunately, the distinction can't be made without a great deal of mathematics. Year-over-year comparisons of worldwide box office are essentially worthless. The continuing explosion of movie-goers in previously underdeveloped markets baises the box office significantly.