NEW YORK, Oct 5 — The latest James Bond movie took a mighty US$121 million (RM505 million) at the international box office over its opening weekend, Universal Pictures said on Monday.

The British and Irish box office led the way with a total of US$35 million, making No Time to Die the biggest movie release there of the coronavirus pandemic and the highest opening three-day weekend ever in the UK and Ireland for a Bond movie.

The film, which marks actor Daniel Craig’s fifth and final outing as the British secret agent, was delayed three times from its planned April 2020 release date because of the pandemic.

Universal said in a statement on Monday that the film grossed US$121 million without being shown in China, the world’s biggest film market. It’s the first Hollywood title in the pandemic to launch to over US$100 million without China. No Time to Die opens in China at the end of October.

No Time to Die has yet to open in North America, arriving in movie theaters in the US and Canada on Friday. Universal and studio MGM decided to release the film exclusively in theaters, eschewing the trend this year by many distributors to release movies on their streaming platforms at the same time.

The action movie, which cost an estimated US$200 million to produce, won warm reviews with many film critics saying it was worth the wait. — Reuters