Bond 24 - Two Words Are Better Than One (...or Three, Four, Five or Six)

So we're just hours away from learning what the real title of Bond 24 is.

Until then, let's speculate to our heart's content and listen to outlandish suggestions, like this one from one 'caller' on Radio 4's Down The Line:

But what's in a Bond film title?

Can the name hold any clue as to how profitable it will be?

No, but let's press on regardless. Got anything better to do?

My slender point is this:

BOND FILMS WITH TWO-WORD TITLES ARE THE MOST PROFITABLE.

To arrive at this startling (and frankly pointless) conclusion, I compared all 23 films' budgets with their worldwide gross box office takings, thus working out how profitable each film was.

For example, Goldfinger's budget of $3 million and its takings of $125 million give it a profitability percentage of 4063%. Compare that with Casino Royale's budget of $150 million and its takings of almost $595 million give it a profitability percentage of 296%.

(Disclaimer: the budget-to-gross takings percentage has got progressively smaller since the 60s, so that does skew the results somewhat)

Using the table (below), I then added the percentages of films with the same number of words in their title, then divided that number by how many films there were in that group.

e.g. the four-word titles are:

• From Russia With Love (3,845%)
• You Only Live Twice (1,075%)
• Live And Let Die (1,705%)
• For Your Eyes Only (598%)

The sum total of their percentages is 7,223%, divided by four because there are four of them and, la-di-dah, the mean average is 1,806%.

So in first place were the TWO-word titles with an average profitability of 2,807%

In second place were FOUR-word titles with an average profitability of 1,806%

In third place, the ONE-word titles with an average profitability of 1,265%

And so on...

Films with FIVE-word titles had an average profitability of 736%

The one film with a SIX-word title had an average profitability of 651%

And the six films with THREE-word titles had an average profitability of 505%

So there we have it - a two word title will see Babs and Michael off the streets.

Now, is it Muff Wrangler or Muffwrangler...?

TABLE:

FILM	BUDGET ($, source IMDb)	GROSS TAKINGS ($, source IMDb)	PROFITABILITY (%)
Dr. No	1,100,000	59,600,000	5,318
From Russia With Love	2,000,000	78,900,000	3,845
Goldfinger	3,000,000	124,900,000	4,063
Thunderball	9,000,000	141,200,000	1,468
You Only Live Twice	9,500,000	111,600,000	1,075
On Her Majesty’s Secret Service	7,000,000	87,400,000	1,149
Diamonds Are Forever	7,200,000	116,000,000	1,511
Live And Let Die	7,000,000	126,377,836	1,705
The Man With The Golden Gun	13,000,000	97,600,000	651
The Spy Who Loved Me	14,000,000	185,400,000	1,224
Moonraker	34,000,000	210,308,099	519
For Your Eyes Only	28,000,000	195,300,000	598
Octopussy	27,500,000	187,500,000	582
A View To A Kill	30,000,000	152,400,000	408
The Living Daylights	30,000,000	191,200,000	537
Licence To Kill	32,000,000	156,200,000	388
Goldeneye	58,000,000	351,500,000	506
Tomorrow Never Dies	110,000,000	335,332,007	205
The World Is Not Enough	135,000,000	352,030,660	161
Die Another Day	142,000,000	431,971,116	204
Casino Royale	150,000,000	594,239,066	296
Quantum Of Solace	200,000,000	575,952,505	187
Skyfall	200,000,000 (est.)	1,108,561,013	454