A rather uneventful fall season in the box-office has ended, and for the last few weeks, we’ve had quite a few hits on our hands to shake things up. “Saw III” recently opened with $33.6m, which is, in fact, the highest opener since “Talladega Nights: The Ballad of Ricky Bobby” opened in early August. In addition, “Borat: Cultural Learnings of America for Make Benefit Glorious Nation of Kazakhstan” beat even the most far-fetched of expectations and opened to $26.5m in just 837 theaters, for a per-theater-average of $31,607, the third highest in history for a wide release (wide release is a film in over 600 theaters). “Casino Royale,” as well as its competition for the weekend, “Happy Feet,” will be the first film to possibly break the $40m barrier in over three months. Although it’s questionable whether “Casino Royale” will reach or exceed the heights of the last Bond flick, “Die Another Day,” thanks to its new lead, Daniel Craig. Let’s look at the box-office prospects.

The weekend before the Thanksgiving break/holiday is often the biggest weekend of the holiday season, which bodes well for “Casino Royale.” In recent years, it’s been the weekend where films like the “Harry Potter” series take off. This is also the same weekend “Die Another Day” opened to $47.1m en route to $160.9m, thanks to being located so close to Thanksgiving and the holidays. Late November is typically for big kid’s films, however, so to fill the void for the 13 and over bracket, “Casino Royale” will capitalize. “Die Another Day” dropped just -34.1% on its second weekend, so a relatively soft drop (in comparison to what frontloaded films like this would drop) is expected. November, in general, is a huge month, though. Here are the highest openers of November:

On one of the better weekends of the year, there is no reason “Casino Royale” can’t do well.

Box-Office Effect: Positive

Competition

In a crowded month like November, it’s hard to avoid competition. Luckily, there aren’t many films on “Royale’s” opening weekend that could steal its thunder. “Borat” will be holding strong, most likely, but it would probably move to a second-option for guys (and if it’s really strong, “Royale” might benefit from being the PG-13 film to use for sneak-ins to “Borat”). Opening on the same weekend is “Happy Feet,” trying to work as some major counter-programming. Last year, “Walk the Line” opened against the beast, “Harry Potter and the Goblet of Fire,” and still came out with a nice $22.3m. “Die Another Day” opened one weekend after the second “Harry Potter” film and still had no trouble topping the weekend. It’s common for two major blockbusters two open against each other when appealing to different audiences. A great recent example of this scenario was “The Da Vinci Code” and “Happy Feet” earlier this year. “Da Vinci” opened to $77.1m and “Over the Hedge” still opened with $38.5m. The numbers between the two films might be closer for “Casino Royale” and “Happy Feet,” so it’s not a guaranteed #1 opening for “Casino Royale” (meaning it could rank rather high on the highest openers to not hit #1 list, with films like “The Day After Tomorrow,” “The Longest Yard,” and “Madagascar).

However, after its opening weekend, “Casino Royale” faces two films that might take away some of that audience. Denzel Washington’s “Déjà Vu” is looking to open to nice numbers over the long weekend, while Hugh Jackman’s “The Fountain” might not open that well, but still provide some competition. Nevertheless, “Casino Royale” does have the holiday weekend in its second weekend, so it should still be a good pick.

Box-Office Effect: Positive

Cast

The “make it or break it” aspect of “Casino Royale” is its cast; specifically, the replacement of Pierce Brosnan for Daniel Craig. This switch has caused a great outburst of hate towards the Bond series because of the idea that Craig does not have the “good-looking” aspect of Bond that people have grown to accept. Craig has the ass-kicking look down. Based on the trailers and early reviews, he looks to pulling off the action scenes quite well. But the question is whether people will accept Craig as the new Bond, especially opening weekend, before word-of-mouth about the film begins to spread.

I think there will be an effect, but not a major one to take away the audience that came out for the last three or four films. Obviously, we’ve seen the hardcore Bond fans protesting the idea of Craig as the lead, but this group of protesters simply isn’t a significant amount of people, especially in terms of box-office receipts. Not that the rest of the potential audience thinks that he’s the perfect choice for Bond – personally, as a huge Bond fan and a huge fan of Brosnan’s Bond films in particular, I’m still skeptical about Craig being a great bond, but that doesn’t stop me from seeing the film to find out. And I think a lot of people, fans or not, will feel that way. I don’t think Craig will hurt or help “Casino Royale.” His performance in this film will certainly affect the next Bond film, which he’s already signed for.

Box-Office Effect: Neutral

Genre

In the last two years, straight-up action films have seen a significant decline in box-office. Audiences don’t seem to be overly impressed with big explosions. “Mission: Impossible III” opened to a respectable $47.7m this past May, but expectations were in the $65-75m range thanks to tons of hype and just a general assumption that it would increase from the last film and be more frontloaded. “M:I-3” ended up grossing less than even the original “Mission: Impossible.” “Miami Vice” opened to somewhat low numbers (VERY poor when you consider its outrageous budget) and barely finished with $63m. “Stealth,” “XXX: State of the Union,” and many others have suffered the same fate. The last Bond film was released in 2002, so it’s hard to tell whether “Casino Royale” will be hurt this. However, “The Bourne Supremacy,” another spy film, actually increased over its predecessor and earned $176.2m domestically back in 2004. But the trend seems to be more recent, so it’s hard to determine where “Casino Royale” will fall. If it grossed as much as “M:I-3,” that would certainly be a great success.

Box-Office Effect: Neutral

Marketing

In comparison to “Die Another Day,” the marketing doesn’t feel as strong. The quality of the marketing is certainly good, but “Die Another Day” felt a little more “EVERYWHERE.” “Casino Royale” has been heavily advertised during the Sunday football games, though, which is a big plus. Sony knows its audience. The action-packed trailer was even attached to many prints of “Borat,” which is one of the bigger films recently and attracting many teens. For Sony, the marketing hasn’t been amazing, but solid.

Box-Office Effect: Positive

Screen Counts / Theater Counts

With Sony, there’s no doubt that “Casino Royale” will have a huge theater count. Sony has a tendency to release even their smaller films in a massive amount of theaters, and their biggest film of the holidays should be no different. Currently, it is estimated to be in 3,400+ theaters, and I expect the actual figure to be closer to 3,600 or more. In terms of screens, “Casino Royale” will have some major competition from “Happy Feet.” In bigger theaters, this won’t be a concern as many of the bigger theaters will begin to drop the October films completely. However, in smaller theaters, “Happy Feet” and even films like “Borat,” “The Santa Clause 3: The Escape Clause,” and “Flushed Away” could make the difference between 3 screens and 2 screens. In addition to the fact that the running time is quite long, “Royale” needs to get all the screens it can possibly get. The theater count should make up for it somewhat, though.

Box-Office Effect: Positive

Final Thoughts and Predictions

“Casino Royale” has too much going for it to fail at this point. It seems like a guaranteed $100m film. The question is how far it can go from there. A lot of people might consider a sub-$40m opening as a massive disappointment, but based on the early word, word-of-mouth looks to be good, and with the holidays, legs should be just as good as “Die Another Day,” if not slightly better. “Royale” doesn’t even have to compete with a “Harry Potter” film, so that should only help its legs. A weekend-to-total multiplier of 3.4-3.5x seems to be likely. As for the opening weekend, there seems to be a good amount of hype, a lack of direct competition, and so far great reviews. The only thing that could potentially affect the film is Daniel Craig, which should be a minor dent, if anything at all.

In approx. 3,600 theaters, “Casino Royale” looks to open in the $40-45m range, or roughly a $11,500-12,500 per-theater-average (PTA), similar to “Mission: Impossible III” ($11,776 PTA). From its opening weekend, “Casino Royale” should make around $140-155m total. The low end of the spectrum would be around $36-39m, leading to a $125-140m. $46-49m would be the high-end, leading to a $160-170m. I find the high-end more unlikely considering the new lead and the “restart” feel of “Casino Royale.” “Die Another Day” finished with $160m, so finishing with more than that will be difficult, unless the WOM is fantastic. Finishing lower than $125m also seems unlikely given the hype, but there’s still a possibility if the general audiences feel the same as the hardcore fans do about Craig or the “darker” feel to the film, in comparison to the “fun” feel of “Die Another Day” and Brosnan’s post-“Goldeneye” entries.