Audiences and critics won over, record bookings… The last part of James Bond’s adventures, To die can wait, kicks off on hats for its theatrical release Thursday in the UK. Across the Channel, this highly anticipated film, the release of which has been postponed for eighteen months due to the pandemic, is a welcome boost for cinemas, hard hit by successive lockdowns.
Theaters chain Odeon said it sold more than 175,000 tickets for the film within two weeks of going on sale. For their part, Vue cinemas sold more than 270,000 tickets before the release and expect the film, the 25th James Bond and fifth and last with Daniel Craig as 007, to be the biggest success in the UK. United and in Ireland since Star Wars: The Rise of Skywalker, in December 2019.
“The enduring popularity of everyone’s favorite spy”
Odeon reported that about 40% of tickets are purchased by patrons returning to theaters for the first time since the pandemic, with more than a third purchased by moviegoers over 46, “showing the enduring popularity of the favorite spy of all. “
In addition to this commercial success, To die can wait has racked up rave reviews since the film premiered on Tuesday at the Royal Albert Hall in London.
A “moving portrait of an aging hero faced with his obsolescence”
“It’s better than good. It’s magnificent, ”enthusiastically enthused the cinema critic of the Times welcoming the “moving portrait of an aging hero facing his obsolescence”.
This opus shows that the “007 franchise is still capable of surprising fans,” said the daily. The Guardian.
The tabloid The Sun greets stunts “simply spectacular, especially a scene involving a motorbike in Italy that you will watch while covering your eyes, intoxicated with fear”.
In the film, the character invented by the writer Ian Fleming is taken from his retirement to face his best enemies: Blofeld, the Specter organization and especially the dreaded Safin (Rami Malek).
Confronted with his intimate faults, the most famous agent in the service of His Majesty has the delicate mission of saving both the world and his family. The film will be released on October 6 in France.