It’s official. The new James Bond movie “Quantum of Solace” rules the world.

Even though first reviews of the 22^nd installment of the Bond series didn’t give much credit to “Solace,” claiming it had taken too many pages from the 2006 production “Casino Royale’s” book and that it also lacked 007’s trademarks, the movie showed the entire world what it was made of.

Columbia Pictures revealed on Sunday that during its debut week-end in Canada and the United States, “Quantum of Solace” registered record earnings, selling $70.4 million worth of tickets within that time-frame. Moreover, since it opened overseas on October 31st , the production pretty much dominated the worldwide box-office, the profit amounting to $251.6 million where the foreign countries it debuted in are concerned. In addition, in 73 of these countries, „Solace’s” earnings reached $56.1 million during the movie's first week-end.

Adding up, all this makes $322 million for „Quantum of Solace” worldwide, which puts the movie not far behind the aforementioned „Casino Royale” that back in 2006, crossed the $500 million threshold during the opening week-end, with a total of $594 million.

The Bond movie of the franchise that had held the record in terms of debut earnings until „Solace” outran it is „Die Another Day,” the last of the series to star Pierce Brosnan as the 007 agent, which made $47.1 million during its first week-end back in November 2002.

As for „Casino Royale,” the first to cast actor Daniel Craig in the leading role, opened to $40.8 million two years ago, also in November.