Skyfall and its star Daniel Crag as 007 James Bond came out with guns blazing at the box office on Friday, setting a single-day ticket sales record as the 23rd film in the venerable franchise. Not too shabby for a mid-November release dropping when kids are still in school.
All indications coming into Friday were that Skyfall was set up to dominate the box office, and it sure did. Thursday late showings topped $4 million including $2.2 million from IMAX screenings. Positive word-of-mouth began to spread early and through Friday an impressive “A” CinemaScore was achieved.
Skyfall’s $30.8 million take on Friday, not including the Thursday IMAX screenings, tops the $27 million put up by the previous film in the franchise, Quantum of Solace. Revised projections are pegging Skyfall to wrap its opening weekend in the range of $80 million. The strong CinemaScore has me thinking $85 to $90 million is well within reach.
Disney’s Wreck-It Ralph got wrecked a bit by Skyfall’s arrival and dropped 42 percent from its opening day a week ago with $7.8 million. With $68.5 million in the bank thus far, Wreck-It Ralph will easily cross $100 million and could make a run for $150 million if holiday business is brisk.
Flight starring Denzel Washington soared into third place with $4.3 million. That’s a relatively steep 48 percent decline versus last Friday, no doubt due to Skyfall’s dominance. Flight has now collected $36.9 million overall.
Argo keeps on hanging around in the top five by landing in fourth place with $1.8 million in its fifth weekend of release. The Ben Affleck drama has now crossed $80 million and continues its impressive and steady march toward the $100 million milestone.
Taken 2 wrapped up the top five with $1.2 million, bringing its total to $128.5 million. The flick is already available for pre-order on Blu-ray and DVD, and because it is pacing ahead of the original Taken, expect a third film to get a green light at some point in the near future.
Stop back tomorrow to see if James Bond in Skyfall wrapped its opening weekend closer to $80 or $90 million.
