Daniel Craig’s last outing as 007 is expected to be the biggest opening weekend at the British box office since Avengers: Endgame more than two years ago, as cinemas hire hundreds of extra staff to cope with “Bondmania”. Advance ticket sales have put No Time to Die on track to be the second-highest grossing film in the 59-year-old franchise after it finally gets its world public premiere on 30 September. It follows an almost 18-month delay and four release date changes, and cinema owners are pulling out all the stops to sate demand with the film to be screened in more than 700 cinemas across the UK and Ireland. Many of the biggest and most popular sites, such as in London, are playing the 25th instalment of the super-spy franchise in back-to-back sessions from one minute past midnight on Thursday, after advance sales hit pre-pandemic levels. “It is going to be the biggest opening weekend since the pandemic began,” says Tim Richards, the chief executive of Vue, the UK’s third-largest cinema operator. “Covid and changing consumer habits mean there are more advance bookings made now than we used to see, notwithstanding that it looks like Bond is going to have the biggest opening weekend here since Avengers: Endgame in 2019.” Richards said Vue, which is showing the film in all 91 of its venues, has had to increase staff numbers by about 10%, adding about 450 new employees to its 4,500 regular workforce, to handle Bondmania. While no one expects No Time To Die to come near Avengers: Endgame – the highest grossing film of all-time made £31.4m in its UK opening weekend and £43.4m over four days from its Thursday premiere in April 2019 – it looks set to be one of the biggest Bond films ever. “We sold more [advance] tickets to No Time To Die in 24 hours than we did for Spectre in a month,” says Richards. “To be even-handed, there are now significant increases in advance bookings, but it is still tracking to be bigger than Spectre.” In 2015, Spectre made £95m at the UK box office and $880m globally, making it the second-biggest film in the franchise after 2012’s Skyfall, which made £103m domestically and $1.1bn worldwide. Craig’s last outing as Bond will, without question, be the biggest film of the year in the UK, but it remains to be seen if 007 has the ability to bring back the global movie-going masses still hesitant to return to cinemas due to the pandemic. “Since only one Bond film has ever grossed $1bn I’m not really going out on a limb here by saying No Time To Die won’t reach that box office bull’s eye in the middle of a pandemic,” says Jeff Bock, a senior box office analyst at the industry analyst Exhibitor Relations. “In fact, with only one domestic release topping half that in 2021, just getting halfway there would be an achievement.” To be the biggest film of the year, No Time to Die would have to overtake the Chinese comedy Hi, Mom, which has made $822m, and F9, the latest in the Fast & Furious franchise, which has pulled in $716m.