Everyone’s holding their breath for Spectre. The latest James Bond film hits theaters on Friday, and overseas the flick’s already starting to see some serious bank.
According to Deadline.com, movie execs are betting this picture will net between $70 million and $75 million during its first week. The movie would reverse the box office slump in recent weeks, in which pictures starring Bill Murray, Sandra Bullock and Bradley Cooper have majorly flopped.
While its predecessor Skyfall performed well, the Bond franchise has a fairly uneven history. It started moderately budgeted, turned in several large-scale (at the time) hits in the 1960s and ‘70s, and then hit a low point in the ‘80s – a time in which Moore bowed out and Timothy Dalton couldn’t sustain it. While casting Pierce Brosnan in the ‘90s helped it pick up again, the corny plots and second-rate Bond girls (did anyone buy Denise Richards as a nuclear physicist?) kept the flicks as also-ran action movies at the time.
So between View to a Kill and Skyfall, we count down the top 10 performing Bond movies at the box office.