JOHN NOLTE No Time to Die, the 25th entry in the iconic James Bond franchise, went woke and opened to a pathetic $56 million.
So how bad is that opening?
Oh, it’s bad.
Despite debuting on 4,400 screens, a record for a Bond film, No Time to Die didn’t come close to the opening of its three most recent predecessors: 2015’s Spectre (70.4 million), 2012’s Skyfall ($88 million), or 2008’s Quantum of Solace ($67.5 million). The only Daniel Craig entry No Time to Die topped was his first, 2006’s Casino Royale ($40.8 million).
As of right now, No Time to Die sits at $313 million worldwide, which sounds good when it’s likely not. This sucker cost somewhere between $250 to $300 million to produce, and the producers are bragging about how they put another $250 million into promotion. That means No Time to Die will have to land somewhere in the vicinity of $1 billion just to break even.
Daniel Craig is James Bond in “No Time to Die.” (MGM)
Naturally, the lying suck-ups in the Hollywood press are already making lame excuses for this underperformance when we all know what the real problem is. Let’s just say it ain’t the pandemic, and it ain’t the fact the movie is nearly three hours long.
It’s bad enough Craig’s Bond series took all the fun and sex and escapism out of the franchise. What makes Bond unique is that he’s a super-spy who knows he won’t live long and therefore lives his life to the fullest as a devil-may-care libertine. But Craig’s Bond is a moody brooder. And then, on top killjoying the very quality that makes James Bond James Bond, No Time to Die went woke. The director trashed Sean Connery’s Bond as a rapist (which only proved he knows nothing about his own franchise), the producers bragged about how No Time to Die would introduce a black woman as 007, and Q turned gay.
Lashana Lynch plays agent 007 in “No Time to Die. (MGM
Nobody wants to see that shit.
You want to make 008 or 009 or 0055 a black woman, fine! You want to introduce a gay character? Fine! But when you announce a black woman is 007 and the same Q we’ve known for 60 years has suddenly gone gay, the message is unmistakable: you’ve put kneeling in fealty before the Woke Gestapo over the importance of story, legacy, and respect for what’s come before. So fuck you right back.
No Time to Die should have been 007’s Avengers: Endgame: This is the end of the Daniel Craig era! Come say goodbye to Daniel Craig! But that too is a problem, and not just because of the Woke Nazism. Unfortunately, there just isn’t a whole lot of affection and goodwill out there for Craig’s 007. That’s not the actor’s fault. It’s the producers’ fault who took all the fun out of the character, who turned him into a self-involved brooder and ejected the charming, glib, womanizing, devil-may-care badass we love to live through vicariously.
et me explain why you cannot blame the pandemic for this massive fail of this opening weekend. Just a couple of weeks ago, Venom 2 opened to $90 million on fewer screens (4,225). A few weeks before that, something called Shang-Chi and the Legend of the Ten Rings opened to $75.3 million on fewer screens (4330).
The suck-ups are also attempting to blame No Time to Die’s insane run time (2 hours and 43 minutes), which is just pure hogwash. First off, these same experts knew the run time when they predicted an opening somewhere between $60 and $80 million. Secondly, long runtimes only hurt the box office when fewer screenings force theaters to turn people away for lack of seats. Well, when you have a $56 million opening in 4,400 theaters, there are plenty of open seats.
The bottom line is this…
Woke is a violation of human nature, which makes it a lie, and no one wants to spend $12 to be lied to.
Because of a long-scheduled camping trip, I have not yet seen No Time to Die yet. I will try to this week. But I’m not looking forward to it, a sentiment that speaks volumes.
