No Time to Die
No Time to Die is a 2021 spy film and the twenty-fifth in the James Bond series produced by Eon Productions, starring Daniel Craig in his fifth and final portrayal of fictional British MI6 agent James Bond. The plot follows Bond, who has left active service with MI6, and is recruited by the CIA to find a kidnapped scientist, which leads to a showdown with a powerful and vengeful adversary armed with a technology capable of killing millions.
For other uses, see No Time to Die (disambiguation).No Time to Die
- Neal Purvis
Robert Wade - Cary Joji Fukunaga
- Phoebe Waller-Bridge
- Neal Purvis
- Robert Wade
- Cary Joji Fukunaga
- United Artists Releasing (North America)
- Universal Pictures (International)
- 28 September 2021 (Royal Albert Hall)
- 30 September 2021 (United Kingdom)
- 8 October 2021 (United States)
163 minutes
- United Kingdom[1]
- United States
English
$250–301 million
It was directed by Cary Joji Fukunaga from a screenplay he co-wrote with Neal Purvis, Robert Wade and Phoebe Waller-Bridge, based on a story conceived by Purvis, Wade and Fukunaga. Léa Seydoux, Ben Whishaw, Naomie Harris, Jeffrey Wright, Christoph Waltz, Ralph Fiennes, and Rory Kinnear reprise their roles from previous films, with Rami Malek, Lashana Lynch, Billy Magnussen, Ana de Armas, David Dencik and Dali Benssalah also starring.
It is the first James Bond film to be distributed by Universal Pictures, which acquired international distribution rights after the expiration of Sony Pictures' contract following the release of Spectre in 2015. United Artists Releasing holds the rights for North America, as well as worldwide digital and television rights; Universal also holds the worldwide rights for physical home media.
Development on the film began in 2016. Danny Boyle was originally attached to direct and co-write the screenplay with John Hodge. Both left in August 2018 due to creative differences, and Fukunaga was announced as Boyle's replacement one month later. Most of the cast had signed by April 2019. Principal photography took place from April to October 2019. Billie Eilish performed the theme song of the same name, while Hans Zimmer scored the film, with Steve Mazzaro serving as score producer.
After being delayed by Boyle's departure and later by the COVID-19 pandemic, No Time to Die premiered at the Royal Albert Hall in London on 28 September 2021. It was theatrically released on 30 September 2021 in the United Kingdom and on 8 October 2021 in the United States. The film received positive reviews from critics and grossed over $774 million worldwide, making it the fourth-highest-grossing film of 2021 and the third-highest grossing Bond film. In addition, it earned several other box-office record achievements, including becoming the third-highest-grossing film of all time in the UK.
The film was nominated for three awards at the 94th Academy Awards, winning Best Original Song, and received numerous other accolades.
Plot[edit]
A young Madeleine Swann witnesses her mother's murder by terrorist Lyutsifer Safin. Swann's father, Mr. White, had been ordered by Ernst Stavro Blofeld to assassinate Safin's family. Swann shoots Safin and flees, falling into a frozen lake, but he rescues her.
Years later, after Blofeld's arrest,[a] Swann travels to Matera with James Bond. She persuades Bond to visit his ex-lover Vesper Lynd's nearby grave, where he survives an explosion orchestrated by SPECTRE operatives led by Primo, a mercenary with a bionic eye. Bond and Swann escape together, but Bond ends their relationship, believing that Swann betrayed him.
Five years later, SPECTRE agents extract MI6 scientist Valdo Obruchev, who secretly works for Safin, from a London laboratory and steal Project Heracles, a programmable DNA-targeting nanobot bioweapon developed under M's oversight. Retired and living in Jamaica, Bond is contacted by CIA ally Felix Leiter and State Department agent Logan Ash, who ask for Bond's help extracting Obruchev from a SPECTRE party in Cuba. Bond declines but later accepts after Nomi, his successor as Agent 007, warns him not to interfere with her own extraction of Obruchev and puts him in contact with M, who refuses to answer his questions about Heracles.
Bond infiltrates the party with Paloma, a Cuban agent assisting Leiter. Blofeld, overseeing the gathering from Belmarsh prison through Primo's bionic eye, disperses a nanobot mist to kill Bond. However, Obruchev reprogrammed the nanobots under Safin's orders to kill the SPECTRE members instead. Outmaneuvering Nomi with Paloma's help, Bond brings Obruchev to Ash and Leiter aboard a trawler. Ash is revealed to be a double agent working for Safin, and he shoots Leiter and traps him with Bond below deck, fleeing with Obruchev after triggering explosives to sink the ship. Leiter dies of his wounds, but Bond escapes.
Bond returns to London, seeking to interrogate Blofeld about Obruchev's employer, but Blofeld reportedly only speaks to his psychiatrist, Swann. MI6 arranges for Bond to visit Blofeld alongside Swann. Safin coerces Swann into infecting herself with nanobots to assassinate Blofeld. Meeting Swann in Belmarsh, Bond unknowingly infects himself with Swann's nanobots. Swann becomes too distressed to face Blofeld, and she flees, telling Bond only that she is going "home." Blofeld reveals to Bond that he planned the explosion at Vesper's grave to make Bond believe that Swann betrayed him. Enraged, Bond briefly strangles Blofeld before relenting, unknowingly allowing the nanobots to enter Blofeld's system and kill him.
Bond tracks Swann to her childhood home in Norway, where they reconcile, and he meets her five-year-old daughter Mathilde. Swann insists that Mathilde is not his child and shares intelligence that her father gathered about Safin and the island his family owned. The following day, MI6 alerts Bond that Ash is approaching his location. Ash and several armed thugs ambush Bond, Mathilde, and Swann as they flee in their car, pursuing them into a nearby forest. Bond orders Swann and Mathilde to hide while he confronts Ash and his forces. He defeats Ash's men before killing Ash, avenging Leiter's death, but Safin kidnaps Swann and Mathilde.
Q provides Bond and Nomi with a submersible glider to infiltrate Safin's headquarters, a missile base in the Sea of Japan that has been converted into a nanobot factory. Bond and Nomi plan to rescue Swann and Mathilde before ordering a missile strike on the facility. Bond confronts Safin, who flees with Mathilde but later releases her, while Swann escapes Primo and reunites with Bond and Mathilde. Nomi kills Obruchev by kicking him into an acid pool,[4] then escorts Swann and Mathilde off the island. Bond kills Safin's remaining men, including Primo, and opens the silo doors for missiles launched from HMS Dragon to penetrate. Bond rushes back to the control room when the silo doors suddenly begin closing, but is ambushed by Safin, who infects him with a nanobot vial programmed to kill Swann and Mathilde. Bond shoots Safin dead and reopens the silo doors, then chooses to remain on the island and die to keep Swann and Mathilde safe. He radios Swann to say goodbye, expressing his love for her and Mathilde, who she confirms is his daughter. The missiles destroy the facility, and Bond dies in the resulting explosion.
Later, at MI6, M, Moneypenny, Nomi, Q, and Bill Tanner drink to Bond's memory. Driving Mathilde to Matera, Swann tells her a story about "a man named Bond, James Bond."
Additionally, Hugh Dennis and Priyanga Burford portray scientists working at an MI6 laboratory.[40] Mathilde Bourbin and Coline Defaud appear as Madeleine Swann's mother and young Madeleine respectively in the film's opening sequence.[41][42] Brigitte Millar also reprises her role as SPECTRE chief Dr. Vogel from Spectre.[43]
Release[edit]
Distribution rights[edit]
The Sony Pictures contract to coproduce the Bond films with Metro-Goldwyn-Mayer and Eon Productions expired with the release of Spectre in 2015.[169] In April 2017, Sony Pictures, Warner Bros. Pictures, 20th Century Fox, Universal Pictures, and Annapurna Pictures entered a bidding competition to win the distribution rights.[170] MGM secured the North American, digital, and worldwide television rights to the film through its distribution arm United Artists Releasing.[171][172] Universal became the international distributor and worldwide holder of the rights for physical home media (DVD and Blu-ray) through its subsidiary Universal Pictures Home Entertainment, prior to its joint venture agreement in January 2020 with Warner Bros. Home Entertainment.[171][173][f]
Reception[edit]
Box office[edit]
No Time to Die grossed $160.9 million in the United States and Canada and $613.3 million in other territories, for a worldwide total of $774.2 million.[2][3] It was the fourth-highest-grossing film of 2021.[217] Because of the combined production and promotional costs of at least $350 million, it was estimated that the film would have needed to gross at least $800 million worldwide in order to break even.[218][219]
No Time to Die's opening weekend set a $119.1 million box office from 54 countries, including the UK, Brazil, Germany, Italy, Japan, Mexico and Spain, besting its $90 million projections. It was the first film since the COVID-19 pandemic that crossed $100 million in an overseas debut without the China market.[220][221] The Hollywood Reporter stated the premiere was the biggest in the United Kingdom since the pandemic began.[222] In the United States and Canada, No Time to Die was projected to gross $65–85 million in its opening weekend.[223] The film made $23.3 million on its first day, including $6.3 million from Thursday night previews (which included $1 million from Wednesday previews), the best total of the franchise. It went on to debut to $55.2 million,[224][225] topping the box office and marking the fourth-best opening weekend of the franchise.[218] No Time to Die earned an additional $6.9 million on Columbus Day, bringing its four-day total in the United States and Canada to $62.2 million.[226][227] Deadline Hollywood attributed the slight underperformance to the film's 163-minute runtime limiting the number of showtimes.[226] TheWrap said that the opening was good news for cinemas, even if the studio did not break even during the film's theatrical run, and that it was an encouraging sign for upcoming adult-oriented pictures.[219] The film fell 56% in its second weekend to $24.3 million, finishing second behind newcomer Halloween Kills.[228] No Time to Die was re-released in IMAX for the weekend ending on 23 January 2022 as part of the 60th anniversary of the Bond film series.[229]
No Time to Die became the highest-grossing film of 2021 in Europe, the Middle East and Africa, surpassing F9 on 17 October.[230] In China, the film opened to a $28.2 million weekend, displacing The Battle at Lake Changjin from the top rank on the country's box office, despite 13% of cinemas being closed due to China's policies against local COVID-19 outbreaks.[231] It remained at the top of the box office charts during its second weekend despite a drop of 59%, earning $11.4 million for a cumulative total of $49.2 million according to Artisan Gateway.[232] It became the highest-grossing non-Chinese film of 2021 outside the United States and Canada on 14 November, earning an estimated $24 million for a cume of $558.2 million, which included $126 million in the United Kingdom, $70 million in Germany and $57.9 million in China. It also opened to an $8.2 million weekend in Australia, which was the biggest opening for any film since December 2019.[233]
During the weekend of 19–21 November, No Time to Die overtook F9 to become the highest-grossing non-Chinese film of 2021, reaching a global cume of around $734 million as it grossed an estimated $2.6 million in the United States and Canada, as well as $13.4 million from 72 countries outside the two territories.[234][235] It overtook Spectre the following weekend to become the third-highest-grossing film in the United Kingdom as well as the second-highest-grossing Bond film in the market with a gross of $129.9 million.[236]
Critical response[edit]
No Time to Die has an approval rating of 83% based on 425 reviews on the review aggregator website Rotten Tomatoes, with an average rating of 7.3/10. The critics consensus states: "It isn't the sleekest or most daring 007 adventure, but No Time to Die concludes Daniel Craig's franchise tenure in satisfying style."[237] Metacritic assigned the film a weighted average score of 68 out of 100 based on 67 critics, indicating "generally favorable reviews".[238] Audiences polled by CinemaScore gave the film an average grade of "A−" on an A+ to F scale, while those at PostTrak gave it an 83% positive score, with 63% saying they would definitely recommend it.[226]