Spectre (2015 film)



Spectre is the 24th installment in the James Bond film series produced by Eon Productions for Metro-Goldwyn-Mayer and Columbia Pictures. It is Daniel Craig's fourth performance as James Bond, and the second film in the series directed by Sam Mendes following Skyfall, with a screenplay written by John Logan, Neal Purvis, Robert Wade and Jez Butterworth.

The story sees Bond pitted against the global criminal organisation Spectre and against their leader; Ernst Stavro Blofeld, who is revealed to be Bond's adopted brother as he attempts to thwart his plan to launch a global surveillance network, and discovers Spectre and Blofeld were behind the events of the previous three films. The film marks Spectre's first appearance in an Eon Productions film since 1971's Diamonds Are Forever, with Christoph Waltz playing the organisation's leader Ernst Stavro Blofeld. Several recurring James Bond characters, including M, Q and Eve Moneypenny return, with the new additions of Léa Seydoux as Dr. Madeleine Swann, Dave Bautista as Mr. Hinx, Andrew Scott as Max Denbigh and Monica Bellucci as Lucia Sciarra.

Spectre was filmed from December 2014 to July 2015, with locations in Austria, the United Kingdom, Italy, Morocco and Mexico. The action scenes prioritized practical effects and stunts, while still employing computer-generated imagery made by five different companies. Spectre was estimated to have cost around $245 million, making it the most expensive Bond film and one of the most expensive films ever made.

The film was released on 26 October 2015 in the United Kingdom on the same night as the world premiere at the Royal Albert Hall in London, followed by a worldwide release which included IMAX screenings. It was released in the United States one week later, on 6 November. Upon its release, the film received favorable reviews from critics. Its acting, suspense, and action sequences were praised, and both Waltz and Bautista received widespread acclaim for their performances as Blofeld and Hinx, respectively; the theme song and screenplay were considered lacking. The theme song, "Writing's on the Wall", performed by the British singer Sam Smith won the Academy Award for Best Original Song and the corresponding Golden Globe. Spectre grossed over a total of $880 million worldwide, the second largest unadjusted income for the series after its predecessor Skyfall.

Plot
Following Gareth Mallory's promotion to M, James Bond takes leave from MI6, which is merged with MI5 in a series of reforms to the British intelligence community. However, a posthumous message from the previous M leads Bond to carry an unauthorised mission in Mexico City, where he stops a terrorist bombing plot. While confronting the criminals' leader, Marco Sciarra, Bond grabs his ring which is emblazoned with a stylised octopus. Upon returning to London, Bond is indefinitely suspended from field duty by M. Parallel to this, M is in the midst of a power struggle with Max Denbigh (whom Bond dubs "C"), the head of a privately backed agency, the Joint Intelligence Service. C campaigns for Britain to form "Nine Eyes", a global surveillance and intelligence co-operation initiative and uses his influence to close down the '00' section as he believes it to be outdated.

Bond disobeys M's order and travels to Rome to attend Sciarra's funeral. That evening he seduces Sciarra's widow Lucia, who tells him Marco belonged to Spectre, an organisation of businessmen with criminal and terrorist connections. Bond uses Sciarra's ring to infiltrate a Spectre meeting, where he identifies the leader, Franz Oberhauser. When Oberhauser addresses Bond by name, he is pursued across the city by Spectre's assassin, Mr. Hinx. Moneypenny informs Bond that the information he collected leads to Mr. White, a former member of Spectre subsidiary Quantum, who has fallen afoul of Oberhauser and has been marked for assassination. Bond asks her to investigate Oberhauser, who was presumed dead years earlier.

Bond locates White in Austria, where he learns that White is dying of thallium poisoning. He admits to growing disenchanted with Quantum and tells Bond to find and protect his daughter, Dr. Madeline Swann, who will take him to L'Américain; this will in turn lead him to Spectre. White then commits suicide. Bond approaches Swann, and after rescuing her from Hinx, the two meet Q. Through Sciarra's ring, Q forensically links Oberhauser to Bond's previous missions, identifying Le Chiffre, Dominic Greene and Raoul Silva as Spectre agents.

Swann takes Bond to L'Américain, a hotel in Tangier, and discover White left evidence directing them to Oberhauser's operations base at a massive crater in the desert. Taking a train to a remote station, Bond and Swann have an encounter with Hinx that sees the assassin killed, and are eventually escorted to Oberhauser's base. There, Oberhauser reveals that Spectre has been funding the Joint Intelligence Service while staging terrorist attacks around the world, creating a need for the Nine Eyes programme. In return C will give Spectre unlimited access to intelligence gathered by Nine Eyes, allowing them to anticipate and counter-act investigations into their operations. Bond is tortured as Oberhauser discusses their shared history: after the younger Bond was orphaned, Oberhauser's father, Hannes, became his temporary guardian. Believing that Bond supplanted his role as son, Oberhauser killed his father and staged his own death, subsequently adopting the name Ernst Stavro Blofeld and going on to form Spectre. Bond and Swann overpower him and escape, destroying the base in an explosion and leaving Blofeld to die.

Bond and Swann return to London where they meet M, Bill Tanner, Q, and Moneypenny with the intention of arresting C and stopping Nine Eyes from being activated. Swann and Bond are abducted separately, while the rest of the group proceed with the plan. After Q succeeds in preventing the Nine Eyes from going online, a brief struggle between M and C ends with C falling to his death. Meanwhile, Bond is taken to the ruins of the old MI6 building, which is scheduled for demolition after Raoul Silva's bombing. Moving throughout a ruined labyrinth, he encounters a disfigured Blofeld, who tells him that he has a choice between escaping the building before explosives are detonated or die trying to save Swann. Bond finds Swann and the two escape by boat as the building collapses. Bond shoots down Blofeld's helicopter, which crashes onto Westminster Bridge. As Blofeld crawls away from the wreckage, Bond confronts him but leaves him to be arrested by M, before leaving the bridge with Swann.

Cast

 * Daniel Craig as James Bond, agent 007. The director Sam Mendes has described Bond as being extremely focused in Spectre, likening his new-found dedication to hunting.
 * Christoph Waltz as Ernst Stavro Blofeld, also known as Franz Oberhauser.
 * Léa Seydoux as Dr. Madeleine Swann
 * Ben Whishaw as Q
 * Naomie Harris as Eve Moneypenny
 * Dave Bautista as Mr. Hinx. He is loosely based on the assassin Donald Grant from the 1963 Bond movie From Russia with Love.
 * Andrew Scott as Max Denbigh, nicknamed "C".
 * Monica Bellucci as Lucia Sciarra
 * Ralph Fiennes as M code name for Gareth Mallory.
 * Rory Kinnear as Bill Tanner, the MI6 Chief of Staff
 * Jesper Christensen as Mr. White
 * Alessandro Cremona as Marco Sciarra
 * Judi Dench as Mallory's predecessor M.

Pre-production
In March 2013 Mendes said he would not return to direct the next film in the series, then known as Bond 24; he later recanted and announced that he would return, as he found the script and the plans for the long-term future of the franchise appealing. Nicolas Winding Refn would later reveal that he turned down an offer to direct the movie. In directing Skyfall and Spectre, Mendes became the first director to oversee two consecutive Bond films since John Glen directed The Living Daylights and Licence to Kill in 1987 and 1989. Dennis Gassner returned as the film's production designer, while cinematographer Hoyte van Hoytema took over from Roger Deakins. In July 2015 Mendes noted that the combined crew of Spectre numbered over one thousand, making it a larger production than Skyfall. Craig is listed as co-producer. He considered the credit a high point of his career, saying "I'm just so proud of the fact that my name comes up somewhere else on the titles."

The film's usage of the Spectre organisation — originally stylised "SPECTRE" as an acronym of SPecial Executive for Counter-intelligence, Terrorism, Revenge and Extortion—and its characters marked the end of long-standing litigation between Eon Productions and producer Kevin McClory, who sued James Bond creator Ian Fleming in 1961 claiming ownership over elements of the novel Thunderball, and in an out of court settlement two years later, was awarded the novel's film rights, including Spectre and its characters. McClory died in 2006, and in November 2013 MGM and the McClory estate formally settled the issue with Danjaq, LLC—sister company of Eon Productions—with MGM acquiring the full copyright film rights to the concept of Spectre and all of the characters associated with it. With the acquisition of the film rights and the organisation's re-introduction to the series' continuity, the SPECTRE acronym was discarded and the organisation reimagined as "Spectre".

When Sony Pictures Entertainment renegotiated with Metro-Goldwyn-Mayer the deal to co-finance the Bond franchise in 2011, they were tasked to provide 25 percent of the negative cost of both Skyfall and Spectre, in exchange to receiving 25 percent of the profits plus distribution fees for overseeing its worldwide rollout. When the film was announced in June 2013, the budget was not yet fixed, but was certain to be higher than the $210 million of Skyfall due to foreign locations and bigger payments for Mendes and Craig. In November 2014, Sony was targeted by hackers who released details of confidential e-mails between Sony executives regarding several high-profile film projects. Included within these were several memos relating to the production of Spectre, claiming that the film was over budget, detailing early drafts of the script written by John Logan, and expressing Sony's frustration with the project. Eon Productions later issued a statement confirming the leak of what they called "an early version of the screenplay". Eon resisted Sony and MGM's arguments to cut on stunts and location work to reduce the budget, but managed to secure tax incentives and rebates, such as $14 million from Mexico. Spectre has a final budget estimated between $250 million and $275 million.

Writing
Spectre marked the return of many scriptwriters from the previous Bond films, such as Skyfall writer John Logan; Neal Purvis and Robert Wade, who had done work in five previous Bond films; and British playwright Jez Butterworth, who had previously made uncredited contributions to Skyfall. Butterworth was brought in to polish the script, being helped by Mendes and Craig. Butterworth considered that his changes involved adding what he would like to see as a teenager, and limited the scenes with Bond talking to men, as "Bond shoots other men—he doesn’t sit around chatting to them. So you put a line through that.” With the acquisition of the rights to Spectre and its associated characters, Purvis and Wade revealed that the film would provide a minor retcon to the continuity of the previous films, with the Quantum organisation alluded to in Casino Royale and introduced in Quantum of Solace reimagined as a division within Spectre rather than an independent organisation.

Despite being an original story, Spectre draws on Ian Fleming's source material, most notably in the character of Franz Oberhauser, played by Christoph Waltz, and his father Hannes. Hannes Oberhauser is a background character in the short story "Octopussy" from the Octopussy and The Living Daylights collection, and is named in the film as having been a temporary legal guardian of a young Bond in 1983. As Sam Mendes searched for events in young Bond's life to follow the childhood discussed in Skyfall, he came across Hannes Oberhauser, who becomes a father figure to Bond. From there Mendes conceived the idea of "a natural child who had been pushed out, cuckoo in the nest" by Bond, which became Franz. Similarly, Charmian Bond is shown to have been his full-time guardian, observing the back story established by Fleming.

Casting


The main cast was revealed in December 2014 at the 007 Stage at Pinewood Studios. Daniel Craig returned for his fourth appearance as James Bond, while Ralph Fiennes, Naomie Harris and Ben Whishaw reprised their roles as M, Eve Moneypenny and Q respectively, having been established in Skyfall. Rory Kinnear also reprised his role as Bill Tanner in his third appearance in the series.

Christoph Waltz was cast in the role of Franz Oberhauser, though he refused to comment on the nature of the part. It was later revealed with the film's release that he is Ernst Stavro Blofeld. Waltz got interested in the film for dealing with technology-assisted mass surveillance, "speaking about relevant social issues in a way that few Bonds have done before”, and denied rumours that the role was written specially for him, but added that "when I came on board, the role grew, evolved, and mutated."

Dave Bautista was cast as Mr. Hinx after producers sought an actor with a background in contact sports. The character only has one line in the entire film, "Shit". Sam Mendes thought the silent nature would drive Bautista away, but the life-long Bond fan expressed interest in reviving the quiet henchmen archetype of characters such as Jaws. Bautista inspired his performance mostly on Oddjob from Goldfinger, and said not talking created an acting challenge, “trying to find this way where I am actually going to have speak without speaking." After casting Bérénice Lim Marlohe, a relative newcomer, as Sévérine in Skyfall, Mendes consciously sought out a more experienced actor for the role of Madeleine Swann, ultimately casting Léa Seydoux in the role. Monica Bellucci joined the cast as Lucia Sciarra, becoming, at the age of fifty, the oldest actress to be cast as a Bond girl. In a separate interview with Danish website Euroman, Jesper Christensen revealed he would be reprising his role as Mr. White from Casino Royale and Quantum of Solace. Christensen's character was reportedly killed off in a scene intended to be used as an epilogue to Quantum of Solace, before it was removed from the final cut of the film, enabling his return in Spectre.

In addition to the principal cast, Alessandro Cremona was cast as Marco Sciarra, Stephanie Sigman was cast as Estrella, and Detlef Bothe was cast as a villain for scenes shot in Austria. In February 2015 over fifteen hundred extras were hired for the pre-title sequence set in Mexico, though they were duplicated in the film, giving the effect of around ten thousand extras.

Filming
Mendes revealed that production would begin on 8 December 2014 at Pinewood Studios, with filming taking seven months. Mendes also confirmed several filming locations, including London, Mexico City and Rome. Van Hoytema shot the film on Kodak 35 mm film stock, in contrast to Skyfall being filmed on digital cameras. Early filming took place at Pinewood Studios, and around London, with scenes variously featuring Craig and Harris at Bond's flat, and Craig and Kinnear travelling down the River Thames.

Filming started in Austria in December 2014, with production taking in the area around Sölden—including the Ötztal Glacier Road, Rettenbach glacier and the adjacent ski resort and cable car station—and Obertilliach and Lake Altaussee, before concluding in February 2015. Scenes filmed in Austria centred on the Ice Q Restaurant, standing in for the fictional Hoffler Klinik, a private medical clinic in the Austrian Alps. Filming included an action scene featuring a Land Rover Defender Bigfoot and a Range Rover Sport. Various airplane models were used in filming, from a life-sized plane with detachable wings to film the crash in the woods, to plane fuselages either built atop snowmobiles or shot from nitrogen cannons. Production was temporarily halted first by an injury to Craig, who sprained his knee whilst shooting a fight scene, and later by an accident involving a filming vehicle that saw three crew members injured, at least one of them seriously.

Filming temporarily returned to England to shoot scenes at Blenheim Palace in Oxfordshire, which stood in for a location in Rome, before moving on to the city itself for a five-week shoot across the city, with locations including the Ponte Sisto bridge and the Roman Forum. The production faced opposition from a variety of special interest groups and city authorities, who were concerned about the potential for damage to historical sites around the city, and problems with graffiti and rubbish appearing in the film. Special effects supervisor Chris Corbould stated the scenes had to be extensively planned prior to filming specially to avoid any mishaps, going to the point of building protection above steps where cars would drive. A car chase scene set along the banks of the Tiber River and through the streets of Rome featured an Aston Martin DB10 and a Jaguar C-X75. The C-X75 was originally developed as a hybrid electric vehicle with four independent electric engines powered by two jet turbines, before the project was cancelled. The version used for filming was converted to use a conventional internal combustion engine, to minimise the potential for disruption from mechanical problems with the complex hybrid system. The C-X75s used for filming were developed by the engineering division of Formula One racing team Williams, who built the original C-X75 prototype for Jaguar. Remote driving pods were built above the cars so the vehicles could be driven while the cameras focused on Craig and Bautista in the steering wheel. According to chief stunt co-ordinator Gary Powell, filming the chase had the "risk of skidding into the Vatican", and led to "a record for smashing up cars in Spectre – seven Aston Martins in all,” with the film's car expenses estimated at £24 million ($48 million).

With filming completed in Rome, production moved to Mexico City in late March to shoot the film's opening sequence, with scenes to include the Day of the Dead festival filmed in and around the Zócalo and the Centro Histórico district. At the time, no such Day of the Dead parade like the one from the film took place in Mexico City; in 2016, due to the interest raised by Spectre and the government's desire to promote the pre-Hispanic Mexican culture, the federal and local authorities decided to organize an actual "Día de los Muertos" parade through Paseo de la Reforma and Centro Historico on 29 October 2016, which was attended by 250,000 people. The film opens with a long take that joins six shots seamlessly, and was one of the few scenes that required previsualization. Through extensive planning, filming did not require motion control cameras. The scene joints were done in post-production through re-timing and re-projections, which even matched Mexico locations with interiors filmed at Pinewood.

The planned scenes required the city square to be closed for filming a sequence involving a fight aboard a Messerschmitt-Bölkow-Blohm Bo 105 helicopter flown by stunt pilot Chuck Aaron, which called for modifications to be made to several buildings to prevent damage. This particular scene in Mexico required 1,500 extras, 10 giant skeletons and 250,000 paper flowers. Reports in the Mexican media added that the film's second unit would move to Palenque in the state of Chiapas, to film aerial manoeuvres considered too dangerous to shoot in an urban area. These were pasted over a computer-generated square and crowd below the helicopter, with motion capture doubles fighting inside. Mendes and the effects team felt that this approach "would get believable composition and movement" compared to adding a digital helicopter above the Mexico City location. Following filming in Mexico, and during a scheduled break, Craig was flown to New York to undergo minor surgery to fix his knee injury. It was reported that filming was not affected and he had returned to filming at Pinewood Studios as planned on 22 April. Still, some parts of the Mexico scene were done with stunt doubles, whose faces were digitally replaced with Craig.

A brief shoot at London's City Hall was filmed on 18 April 2015, while Mendes was on location. On 17 May 2015 filming took place on the Thames in London. Stunt scenes involving Craig and Seydoux on a speedboat as well as a low flying helicopter near Westminster Bridge were shot at night, with filming temporarily closing both Westminster and Lambeth Bridges. Scenes were also shot on the river near MI6's headquarters at Vauxhall Cross. The crew returned to the river less than a week later to film scenes solely set on Westminster Bridge. The London Fire Brigade was on set to simulate rain as well as monitor smoke used for filming. Craig, Seydoux, and Waltz, as well as Harris and Fiennes, were seen being filmed. Prior to this, scenes involving Fiennes were shot at a restaurant in Covent Garden. Filming then took place in Trafalgar Square. In early June, the crew, as well as Craig, Seydoux, and Waltz, returned to the Thames for a final time to continue filming scenes previously shot on the river. Blofeld's helicopter crash was done with two full sized helicopter shells, which were rigged with steelwork and an overhead track. Computer-generated rotorblades and scenery damage were added in post-production. The MI-6 building, which in the film is vacated and scheduled for demolition following the terrorist attack from Skyfall, was replaced in the production plates for a digital reconstruction. When the building is detonated, it is a combination of both a miniature and a breakaway version of the digital building.

After wrapping up in England, production travelled to Morocco in June, with filming taking place in Oujda, Tangier and Erfoud, after preliminary work was completed by the production's second unit. The headquarters of Spectre in Morocco was located in Gara Medouar which is a 'crater' caused by erosion and of neither volcanic nor impact origin. An explosion filmed in Morocco holds a Guinness World Record for the "Largest film stunt explosion" in cinematic history, involving 8,140 litres of kerosene and 24 charges each with a kilogram of high explosives. Principal photography concluded on 5 July 2015. A wrap-up party for Spectre was held in commemoration before entering post-production. Filming took 128 days.

Whilst filming in Mexico City, speculation in the media claimed that the script had been altered to accommodate the demands of Mexican authorities—reportedly influencing details of the scene and characters, casting choices, and modifying the script to portray the country in a "positive light"—to secure tax concessions and financial support worth up to $20 million for the film. This was denied by producer Michael G. Wilson, who stated that the scene had always been intended to be shot in Mexico as production had been attracted to the imagery of the Day of the Dead, and that the script had been developed from there. Production of Skyfall had previously faced similar problems while attempting to secure permits to shoot the film's pre-title sequence in India before moving to Istanbul.

Five companies did the visual effects – Cinesite, Double Negative, ILM London, Moving Picture Company and Peerless – under the supervision of Steve Begg. The computer-generated effects included set extensions, digital touches on the vehicles, and crumbling buildings. A sixth one, Framestore, handled the title sequence, the seventh in the series designed by Daniel Kleinman. It took four months to complete, and centered around an octopus motif reminiscent of the Spectre logo, along with images of love and relationships.

Music and soundtrack
Thomas Newman returned as Spectre's composer. Rather than composing the score once the film had moved into post-production, Newman worked during filming. The theatrical trailer released in July 2015 contained a rendition of John Barry's On Her Majesty's Secret Service theme. Mendes revealed that the final film would have more than one hundred minutes of music. The soundtrack album was released on 23 October 2015 in the UK and 6 November 2015 in the USA on the Decca Records label.

In September 2015 it was announced that Sam Smith and regular collaborator Jimmy Napes had written the film's title theme, "Writing's on the Wall", with Smith performing it for the film. Smith said the song came together in one session and that he and Napes wrote it in under half an hour before recording a demo. Satisfied with the quality, the filmmakers used the demo in the final release. The English band Radiohead also composed a song for the film, but it was rejected, according to guitarist Jonny Greenwood, for being "too dark".

"Writing's on the Wall" was released as a download on 25 September 2015. It received mixed reviews from critics and fans, particularly in comparison to Adele's "Skyfall",   leading to Shirley Bassey trending on Twitter on the day it was released. It became the first Bond theme to reach number one in the UK Singles Chart. The song was nominated for and won the Academy Award for Best Original Song. It was the second time a Bond song had won, and only the fifth time one had been nominated. It also won the Golden Globe Award for Best Original Song at the 73rd Golden Globe Awards.

Marketing
During the December 2014 press conference announcing the start of filming, Aston Martin and Eon unveiled the new DB10 as the official car for the film. The DB10 was designed in collaboration between Aston Martin and the filmmakers, with only 10 being produced especially for Spectre as a celebration of the 50th anniversary of the company's association with the franchise. Only eight of those 10 were used for the film, however; the remaining two were used for promotional work. After modifying the Jaguar C-X75 for the film, Williams F1 carried the 007 logo on their cars at the 2015 Mexican Grand Prix, with the team playing host to the cast and crew ahead of the Mexican premiere of the film.

To promote the film, the film's marketers continued the trend established during Skyfall's production of releasing still images of clapperboards and video blogs on Eon's official social media accounts. 17 brands appear in the film through product placement, and many of those, such as Heineken, Bollinger, Omega and Sony – owner of the film's co-distributor Columbia Pictures – did Spectre tie-in advertisments.

On 13 March 2015, several members of the cast and crew, including Craig, Whishaw, Wilson and Mendes, as well as previous James Bond actor, Sir Roger Moore, appeared in a sketch written by David Walliams and the Dawson Brothers for Comic Relief's Red Nose Day on BBC One. In the sketch, they film a behind-the-scenes mockumentary on the filming of Spectre. The first teaser trailer for Spectre was released worldwide in March 2015, followed by the theatrical trailer in July and the final trailer in October.

Release
Spectre had its world premiere in London on 26 October 2015 at the Royal Albert Hall, the same day as its general release in the United Kingdom and Republic of Ireland. Following the announcement of the start of filming, Paramount Pictures brought forward the release of Mission: Impossible – Rogue Nation to avoid competing with Spectre. In March 2015 IMAX corporation announced that Spectre would be screened in its cinemas, following Skyfall's success with the company. In the UK it received a wider release than Skyfall, with a minimum of 647 cinemas including 40 IMAX screens, compared to Skyfall's 587 locations and 21 IMAX screens.

Home media
Spectre was released for digital HD on 22 January 2016 and on DVD and Blu-ray on 9 and 22 February 2016 in the US and UK respectively. It debuted atop the home video charts in both countries, and finished 2016 with 1.5 million units in the UK, the second best-selling title of the year – behind only Star Wars: The Force Awakens - and 2 million copies in the US, 12th in the year-end charts.

Box office
Spectre grossed $880.7 million worldwide; $135.5 million of the takings were generated from the UK market and $200.1 million from North America. Worldwide, this made it the second highest-grossing James Bond film after Skyfall, and the sixth highest-grossing film of 2015. Deadline.com calculated the net profit of the film to be $98.4 million when factoring together all expenses and revenues for the film. Sony had expected the net profit of the film to be around $38 million had it performed in the same vacinity like its prequel. But since it earned 20 per cent less than Skyfall, the profit in actual was $24.6 million. Sony paid 50 percent of the production costs for the film — which totaled some $250 million after accounting for government incentives — but received only 25 percent of certain profits, once costs were recouped. The studio also spent tens of millions of dollars in marketing and had to give MGM a piece of the profit from the studio's non-Bond films, including 22 Jump Street.

In the United Kingdom, the film grossed £4.1 million ($6.4 million) from its Monday preview screenings. It grossed £6.3 million ($9.2 million) on its opening day and then £5.7 million ($8.8 million) on Wednesday, setting UK records for both days. In the film's first seven days it grossed £41.7 million ($63.8 million), breaking the UK record for highest first-week opening, set by Harry Potter and the Prisoner of Azkaban's £23.9 million ($36.9 million) in 2004. Its Friday–Saturday gross was £20.4 million ($31.2 million) compared to Skyfall's £20.1 million ($31 million). The film also broke the record for the best per-screen opening average with $110,000, a record previously held by The Dark Knight with $100,200. It has grossed a total of $136.3 million there. In the UK, it surpassed Avatar to become the country's highest-grossing IMAX release ever with $10.09 million.

Spectre opened in Germany with $22.5 million (including previews), which included a new record for the biggest Saturday of all time, Australia with $8.7 million (including previews) and South Korea opened to $8.2 million (including previews). Despite the 13 November Paris attacks, which led to numerous theatres being closed down, the film opened with $14.6 million (including $2 million in previews) in France. In Mexico, where part of the film was shot, it debuted with more than double that of Skyfall with $4.5 million. It also bested its predecessor's opening in various Nordic regions where MGM is distributing, such as in Finland ($2.7 million) and Norway ($2.9 million), and in other markets like Denmark ($4.2 million), the Netherlands ($3.4 million), and Sweden ($3.1 million). In India, it opened at No. 1 with $4.8 million which is 4% above the opening of Skyfall. It topped the German-speaking Switzerland box office for four weeks and in the Netherlands, it has held the No. 1 spot for seven weeks straight where it has topped Minions to become the top movie of the year. The top earning markets are Germany ($70.3 million) and France ($38.8 million). In Paris, it has the second highest ticket sales of all time with 4.1 million tickets sold only behind Spider-Man 3 which sold over 6.3 million tickets in 2007.

In the United States and Canada the film opened on 6 November 2015, and in its opening weekend, was originally projected to gross $70–75 million from 3,927 screens, the widest release for a Bond film. However, after it grossed $5.3 million from its early Thursday night showings and $28 million on its opening day, weekend projections were increased to $75–80 million. The film ended up grossing $70.4 million in its opening weekend (about $20 million less than Skyfall's $90.6 million debut, including IMAX previews), but nevertheless finished first at the box office. IMAX generated $9.1 million for Spectre at 374 screens, premium large format made $8 million from 429 cinemas, reaping 11% of the film's opening, which means that Spectre earned $17.1 million (23%) of its opening weekend total in large-format venues. Cinemark XD generated $1.9 million in 112 XD locations.

In China, it opened on 12 November and earned $15 million on its opening day, which is the second biggest 2D single day gross for a Hollywood film behind the $18.5 million opening day of Mission: Impossible – Rogue Nation and occupying 43% of all available screens which included $790,000 in advance night screenings. Through its opening weekend, it earned $48.1 million from 14,700 screens which is 198% ahead of Skyfall, a new record for a Hollywood 2D opening. IMAX contributed $4.6 million on 246 screens, also a new record for a three-day opening for a November release (breaking Interstellar's record). In its second weekend, it added $12.1 million falling precipitously by 75% which is the second worst second weekend drop for any major Hollywood release in China of 2015. It grossed a total of $84.7 million there after four weekends (foreign films in the Middle Kingdom plays for 30 days only, unless granted special extensions). Albeit a strong opening, it failed to attain the $100 million mark there as projected due to mixed response from critics and audiences as well as facing competitions from local films.

Critical response
Spectre received favorable reviews, with critics praising the action sequences, cinematography, score, and performances, but criticizing the screenplay. Rotten Tomatoes sampled 312 reviews and judged 64% of them to be positive, saying that the film "nudges Daniel Craig's rebooted Bond closer to the glorious, action-driven spectacle of earlier entries, although it's admittedly reliant on established 007 formula." On Metacritic, the film has a score of 60 out of 100, based on 48 critics, indicating "mixed or average reviews". Audiences polled by CinemaScore gave the film an average grade of "A−" on an A+ to F scale. Prior to its UK release, Spectre mostly received positive reviews. Mark Kermode, writing in The Guardian, gave the film four out of five stars, observing that the film did not live up to the standard set by Skyfall, but was able to tap into audience expectations. Writing in the same publication, Peter Bradshaw gave the film a full five stars, calling it "inventive, intelligent and complex", and singling out Craig's performance as the film's highlight. In another five star review, The Daily Telegraph's Robbie Collin described Spectre as "a swaggering show of confidence'", lauding it as "a feat of pure cinematic necromancy." Positive yet critical assessments included Kim Newman of Sight and Sound, who wrote that "for all its wayward plotting (including an unhelpful tie-in with Bond’s childhood that makes very little sense) and off-the-peg elements, Spectre works" as he felt "the audience’s patience gets tested by two and a half hours of set-pieces strung on one of the series’ thinner plots"; and IGN's Chris Tilly, who rated the film 7.2 out of 10, considering Spectre "solid if unspectacular", and concluding that "the film falls frustratingly short of greatness."

Critical appraisal of the film was mixed in the United States. In a lukewarm review for RogerEbert.com, Matt Zoller Seitz gave the film 2.5 stars out of 4, describing Spectre as inconsistent and unable to capitalise on its potential. Kenneth Turan, reviewing the film for Los Angeles Times, concluded that Spectre "comes off as exhausted and uninspired". Manohla Dargis of The New York Times criticised the film as having "nothing surprising" and sacrificing its originality for the sake of box office returns. Forbes' Scott Mendelson also heavily criticised the film, denouncing Spectre as "the worst 007 movie in 30 years". Darren Franich of Entertainment Weekly viewed Spectre as "an overreaction to our current blockbuster moment", aspiring "to be a serialized sequel" and proving "itself as a Saga". While noting that "[n]othing that happens in Spectre holds up to even minor logical scrutiny", he had "come not to bury Spectre, but to weirdly praise it. Because the final act of the movie is so strange, so willfully obtuse, that it deserves extra attention." Christopher Orr, writing in The Atlantic, also criticised the film, saying that Spectre "backslides on virtually every [aspect]". Lawrence Toppman of The Charlotte Observer called Craig's performance "Bored, James Bored." Alyssa Rosenberg, writing for The Washington Post, stated that the film turned into "a disappointingly conventional Bond film."

In a positive review published in Rolling Stone, Peter Travers gave the film 3.5 stars out of 4, describing Spectre as "party time for Bond fans, a fierce, funny, gorgeously produced valentine to the longest-running franchise in movies". Mick LaSalle from the San Francisco Chronicle, raved that "One of the great satisfactions of Spectre is that, in addition to all the stirring action, and all the timely references to a secret organization out to steal everyone's personal information, we get to believe in Bond as a person." Stephen Whitty from The New York Daily News, who awarded the film four of five stars, stated that "Craig is cruelly efficient. Dave Bautista makes a good, Oddjob-like assassin. And while Lea Seydoux doesn't leave a huge impression as this film's 'Bond girl', perhaps it's because we've already met—far too briefly—the hypnotic Monica Bellucci, as the first real 'Bond woman' since Diana Rigg." Chicago Sun-Times film reviewer Richard Roeper, who gave the film three stars out of four, considered the film "solidly in the middle of the all-time rankings, which means it's still a slick, beautifully photographed, action-packed, international thriller with a number of wonderfully, ludicrously entertaining set pieces, a sprinkling of dry wit, myriad gorgeous women and a classic psycho-villain who is clearly out of his mind but seems to like it that way." Michael Phillips, reviewing for the Chicago Tribune, stated, "For all its workmanlike devotion to out-of-control helicopters, Spectre works best when everyone's on the ground, doing his or her job, driving expensive fast cars heedlessly, detonating the occasional wisecrack, enjoying themselves and their beautiful clothes." Variety film critic Guy Lodge complained in his review that "What's missing is the unexpected emotional urgency of Skyfall, as the film sustains its predecessor's nostalgia kick with a less sentimental bent."

Future
A sequel to Spectre began development in spring 2016. Sam Mendes has stated he will not return to direct the next film in the series. Daniel Craig is unsure about returning as Bond, but producer Barbara Broccoli prefers to keep the actor, saying "Daniel is our secret weapon, he has just brought so much to the role". In October 2016 Craig stated that he may indeed return for another film, saying, "As far as I'm concerned, I've got the best job in the world. I'll keep doing it as long as I still get a kick out of it. If I were to stop doing it, I would miss it terribly."