Producers have said the new James Bond film, No Time To Die, has started off strong at the box office and in its first full day being shown in cinemas in the UK and Ireland, it has grossed an estimated £4.5-5 million.

Following a long delay due to the pandemic, fans can finally watch the film which stars Daniel Craig as James Bond for the final time.

The film was released on Thursday and it has given the cinema industry a much-needed boost.

No Time To Die’s box office opening was roughly 13 per cent above that of 2015’s Spectre and 26 per cent below Skyfall, EON Productions, MGM, Universal Pictures International and United Artists Releasing said.

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No Time To Die will have the widest theatrical release of all-time in the UK with 772 cinemas playing the film – 25 more than the previous record-holder Star Wars: Rise Of Skywalker, according to producers.

And more than 30,000 people attended midnight screenings for No Time To Die while the film sold 1,620,000 advance tickets for the opening four days, the studios said.

That surpassed Spectre’s total advance bookings by more than 12 per cent and was in line with Skyfall, producers said.

No Time To Die, directed by American filmmaker Cary Joji Fukunaga and also starring Lea Seydoux, Rami Malek and Lashana Lynch, is projected to make 90 million dollars (about £66.7 million) over its opening weekend.

It will be available in countries including Brazil, Germany, Italy, Japan, Mexico and Spain.

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The movie will be released in North America, the world’s second biggest film market behind China, on October 8.