James Bond fans who didn't feel comfortable watching No Time To Die in the theaters won't have to wait much longer to catch Daniel Craig's 007 swan song at home. According to Variety, No Time To Die will be available to rent this coming Tuesday, November 9.
Fans can rent No Time To Die for $19.99 on all major platforms, which includes Apple, Amazon, DirecTV, Spectrum, Vudu, and Xfinity. Viewers will have a 48 hour window to access the movie after renting.
After more than a year and a half of delays due to the pandemic, No Time To Die finally debuted in North America on October 8 after an impressive opening run overseas. While its box office run has been somewhat unspectacular here in the U.S. thus far, No Time To Die has fared much better elsewhere, crossing the $600 million mark internationally and becoming the sixth-highest grossing movie of all time in the U.K.
It's not terribly surprising that a James Bond movie would do so well in 007's home country. The film's relative underperformance in the U.S. — earning a hair over $55 million in its opening weekend and just over $136 million so far — no doubt informed the decision to release it on rental platforms so soon. With the pandemic scrambling all traditional notions of how content is released and consumed (perhaps permanently), the theatrical-to-rental window has shrunk. In this case, No Time To Die arrives on your home and personal devices within less than a month.
No Time To Die is not without some deep-seated flaws, yet manages to serve as a more than satisfying conclusion to Daniel Craig's landmark run as James Bond. It may not be the domestic blockbuster it might have been had a little thing called COVID-19 not spread across the nation, but such a short release window feels a bit like a harbinger of things to come. With Amazon having bought Bond's parent studio MGM earlier this year, it's possible that No Time To Die could show up exclusively on Amazon Prime some time into the rental release.
We've seen studios like Disney and Warner Bros. make similar moves (to the some people's distinct consternation), but a non-traditional approach to how these blockbusters seque from theaters to streaming is likely here to stay.