A new spy movie starring Michael Fassbender and Pierce Brosnan has pulled off a box office feat. Fassbender is a versatile actor who is perhaps best known for playing the young Magneto in the X-Men prequel movies beginning with 2011's First Class. However, in addition to starring in big-budget genre movies such as the superhero franchise, Assassin's Creed, and Prometheus, he has starred in a variety of dramas such as Shame, A Dangerous Method, Song to Song, Steve Jobs and 12 Years a Slave, the latter two of which earned him Oscar nominations.

While Pierce Brosnan does not have any Oscar nominations under his belt, he does have ample experience in the spy genre, having starred in four James Bond movies between 1995 and 2002. He played the iconic superspy in GoldenEye, Tomorrow Never Dies, The World Is Not Enough, and Die Another Day, stepping into the role after the two-movie tenure of Timothy Dalton and before the Daniel Craig era, which spanned five movies. Brosnan has also starred in a variety of other notable movies, including Mamma Mia!, The Thomas Crown Affair, Black Adam, and Mrs. Doubtfire.

Black Bag Has Climbed An Important Chart

The Steven Soderbergh Spy Movie Had A Quiet Opening Weekend

Black Bag has leaped onto a major box office chart. The new spy movie, which was directed by Oscar-winner Steven Soderbergh (Ocean's Eleven, Erin Brockovich, Contagion, Magic Mike), follows British intelligence officer George Woodhouse (Michael Fassbender) attempting to discover a mole and suspecting that it might be his wife Kathryn (Cate Blanchett). The star-studded Black Bag cast also includes Naomie Harris, Regé-Jean Page, Marisa Abela, Tom Burke, and Pierce Brosnan. In spite of its star power, it premiered at No. 2 at the domestic box office with a $7.6 million debut that saw it fall behind fellow new release Novocaine.

Novocaine is an action-comedy about a man who can't feel pain that stars Jack Quaid, Amber Midthunder, Jacob Batalon, and Ray Nicholson.

Per The Numbers, Black Bag has now grossed $14.6 million worldwide. This means that the movie has now outgrossed Steven Soderbergh's 2018 thriller Unsane, which made $14.3 million worldwide, to become his 25th highest-grossing movie of all time, either as a director, producer, or executive producer. When counted solely among his directorial efforts, the new spy movie ranks even higher than the filmmaker's Top 25 chart, landing at No. 17, just below 2002's Solaris, which made $14.97 million worldwide.

What This Means For Black Bag

It May Not Breach The Top 20

It seems highly likely that the Black Bag release will continue to climb the all-time chart of Steven Soderbergh movies. It should be quite easy for the spy movie to climb at least one spot more or less immediately, as it only has to close a gap of $0.36 million in order to sur the next-highest movie, the science fiction adaptation Solaris. However, there is a wider gap to cross after that. Below, see a breakdown of the five movies ahead of Black Bag on the chart:

Once Black Bag outgrosses Solaris, in order to climb just one more place up the chart, it will have to earn an additional $16.63 million, which is more than it has earned altogether at the time of writing. However, if it hits that milestone, it would be much easier for it to climb further, as in order to break into the Top 20 Steven Soderbergh movies, it would only have to make $5.1 million more, ing three other titles in the process.

However, getting very far beyond the Top 20 seems unlikely. The entirety of the filmmaker's Top 10 consists of movies that earned more than $100 million, ranging from the 2002 Christopher Nolan movie Insomnia ($113.6 million), which he executive produced, to the 2001 heist thriller Ocean's Eleven ($450.7 million), which he directed. Given Black Bag's trajectory, it seems highly unlikely to ever come close to that blockbuster range.

Our Take On The Black Bag Box Office

It Still Has A Long Way To Go

Although Black Bag may be performing comparatively well to other Steven Soderbergh movies, including his 2025 horror movie Presence ($9.8 million), the 2006 sci-fi thriller A Scanner Darkly ($7.4 million), and the 2006 George Clooney thriller The Good German ($6.7 million), one hindrance to its overall commercial success is the fact that it is not performing at the level required by its mid-sized budget.

Movies typically need to earn back two and a half times their budgets in theaters in order to turn a profit.

The Michael Fassbender and Pierce Brosnan movie reportedly cost between $50 and $60 million, which likely means that its break-even point is somewhere between $125 and $150 million, and potentially more depending on how much was spent on advertising, which is not included in movies' production budgets. Given the fact that Black Bag hasn’t even scratched the surface of $15 million toward the end of its first week in worldwide theaters, this range seems entirely out of its reach during its theatrical run.

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Source: The Numbers