After a slow Halloween that left studios shaken, not stirred, the spectre of box-office failure loomed over Hollywood. But then the twin cinematic forces of Bond (James Bond) and Brown (Charlie Brown) swooped in to save movie executives from turning their golden guns on themselves, ensuring that their respective intellectual properties will die another day.
Okay, now that the Bond puns are out of the way: Spectre and The Peanuts Movie both did quite well at the box office this weekend, contributing to a 148 percent overall rise in ticket sales compared to last week. Spectre secured the No. 1 spot with $73 million, the second-biggest opening for a Bond film after Skyfall. This was still on the lower end of analysts’ expectations, however, because the world is not enough for these people. (Sorry. It was just right there.) The Peanuts Movie, meanwhile, pulled in $45 million at No. 2, meaning we won‘t get to use this great metaphor about rehashing franchise properties and snatching away footballs we came up with in the shower this morning. But oh well. Good for them.
Holdovers dominated the rest of the top 10, with The Martian still hanging in there at No. 3; the film has grossed $197 million and counting, making it officially the biggest domestic box-office success of director Ridley Scott’s career. (It’s set to open in China—always a reliable source of box-office gold—later this month.) The odd couple of Goosebumps and Bridge Of Spies rounded out the top five, and Hotel Transylvania 2 and The Intern continue to prove themselves surprisingly resilient, coming in at No. 6 and No. 9 in their seventh weeks. Maybe it’s time for a shared Meyers/Sandler multiverse?