James Bond’s ‘No Time To Die’ Would Have Just Topped Will Smith’s ‘Bad Boys 3’ And Disney’s ‘Mulan’ To Become 2020’s Biggest Hit

Had everything proceeded as intended, No Time to Die would just now be passing Mulan and Bad Boys for Life to become the biggest global grosser of 2020.

Had things gone to plan, No Time to Die would be in its second domestic and third overseas weekend, meaning it would almost certainly be sailing past the global cumes of Bad Boys for Life and Mulan. Presuming a $100 million domestic debut, the film would have had, by the end of the weekend, between $165 million (-60% in weekend two, like Fate of the Furious and Quantum of Solace) or $181 million (-53%, like Skyfall and Spectre) in ten days of domestic business. Guestimating overseas earnings and worldwide totals is a “fun with math” endeavor, it is almost assured that the 25th James Bond movie would already be well above Bad Boys For Life’s global cume to be 2020’s biggest worldwide grosser.

Spectre had around $540 million worldwide, including a $48 million launch in China, by the end of its second domestic weekend. It had opened overseas 1.5 weeks (October 26, 2015) before its domestic debut on November 6, 2015. Skyfall opened two weeks “early” outside of North America before its November 9, 2012 domestic debut. By the time it had been in domestic theaters for ten days, it had already grossed around $669 million worldwide on its way to $1.108 billion. Just using the Spectre pattern (4.17x its $128 million ten-day domestic cume) gets No Time to Die to between $671 million and $754 million worldwide. Those calculations can be way off for any number of reasons and still end up well above $425 million global.

Yes, Spectre had a three-day head start (Spectre opened on a Monday night), on No Time to Die’s intended release schedule. Universal
UHS
and MGM’s No Time to Die was slated to open in the UK on April 3, seven days before its April 10 domestic launch. And, yes, this presumes that the film didn’t inexplicably bomb or drop like a rock after a strong opening weekend due to poor reviews and/or poor word-of-mouth. However, considering how well Spectre held despite mixed reviews, and even considering how “fine, I guess” Quantum of Solace and Fate of the Furious held despite same, I don’t think there’s a scenario where a James Bond movie that contains all of the 007 fixings ends up as frontloaded as Batman v Superman.

Whether or not Walt Disney
DIS
’s Mulan would be above the Will Smith/Martin Lawrence sequel I can only speculate. If Mulan had indeed opened closer to Aladdin ($91 million Fri-Sun) than Dumbo ($48 million), then yes, it would have crossed $200 million domestic yesterday with around $455 million worldwide. For reference, Beauty and the Beast had a 44/56 domestic/overseas split as it entered its fourth weekend in May of 2017. Had Mulan opened closer to Cinderella’s $67.8 million launch in March of 2015, the Niki Caro-directed actioner would now have around $157 million domestic and $355 million worldwide thus far. It would likely pass Bad Boys 3 here and (especially) abroad, but it would need more time to do so.

But if it had played closer to Dumbo ($48 million domestic debut, $117 million North American cume, $350 million global), well, not so much. No, none of that is accounting for a potential blow-out performance in China, as frankly I’m still of the mind that Mulan was as likely to pull Kung Fu Panda 3-level business ($154 million in 2016) as it was to pull Venom-level ($272 million in 2018) or above earnings in that key territory. If it played like the second coming of Fate of the Furious ($391 million in 2017), that would have obviously changed the conversation. However, the poor performances of The Farewell, DreamWorks and Pearl’s animated Abominable and Crazy Rich Asians made such a scenario far from inevitable.

A Quiet Place Part II, while sure-to-be wildly successful by the standards of a (presumably) $20-$30 million horror sequel, wouldn’t have changed the equation. Nor would Trolls: World Tour, which was supposed to open in theaters last night before it was moved to April 10 and then sent straight to VOD. So now, come what may, the only question is whether China’s theaters open in time for the delayed New Year’s biggies (Detective Chinatown 3, The Rescue, etc.) end up topping the year’s global grossers list and, if so, for how long. But in a sane world, No Time to Die would be racing past Disney’s Mulan and Will Smith’s Bad Boys For Life as the Hollywood’s biggest global grossers for 2020.