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After two weekends globally and one weekend in the U.S., No Time to Die's global box office prospects are starting to take shape.

Matthew Belloni of Puck News, a former entertainment lawyer and editor at The Hollywood Reporter, summarized the 25th James Bond film's performance so far.

Global is still pretty strong, with $145 million for the weekend and $313 million total. Given the costs, there's almost no path to profitability now (Forbes is predicting about $700 million all-in), but it won't be a colossal disaster.  

After all the hopes and dreams, No Time to Die opened to just $56 million in the U.S., a solid pandemic showing but nowhere near last weekend's Venom: Let There Be Carnage ($90 million) or even 2015's Spectre ($70.4 million), let alone the hyperbolic $100 million floated by some. 

This again comes down to how expensive No Time to Die was to make (approaching $300 million) and market (multiple waves of ads before it finally came out in late September and early October).

Obviously, there is a market for a James Bond movie, even during a pandemic. The question is the size of that market especially when COVID-19 still is a reality.

The blog has stated this before but it's still the case. No Time to Die was conceived and produced during an era of expensive "tentpole" movies intended to draw customers to movie theaters. Billion-dollar box office movies became almost a necessity.

No Time to Die came out after COVID-19 coupled with streaming changed everything.

Only the number crunchers at Metro-Goldwyn-Mayer, Bond's home studio, will know the full story once No Time to Die completes its theatrical run. But the possibility of a popular hit that's a financial disappointment remains.