Skyfall earned $87 million in its first weekend here in the US, far and away the biggest opening weekend ever for a Sam Mendes movie (second best: Jarhead, $27 million) and the best ever for a James Bond film. Knowing that old poon hound, I bet he celebrated with a Heineken. An ice cold Heineken and an exotic broad to shave him.

Skyfall‘s opening crushed Quantum of Solace’s $67.5 million, which was the previous Bond record. It was also double Casino Royale‘s $40.8 million debut, which was star Daniel Craig’s first outing as the infamous spy. The debut ranks fourth on the year behind The Avengers, The Dark Knight Rises and The Hunger Games, and it ranks seventh all-time in November behind two Twilight movies and four Harry Potter flicks. Including $2.2 million from Thursday’s IMAX/premium-large-format showings, the movie has already earned $90 million total.

It was a pretty good weekend for movies overall, with none of last week’s top five dropping more than 40 percent and Lincoln cleaning up in limited release. Ben Affleck’s Ahhhhgo is in its fifth weekend with its highest week-to-week drop just 34 percent.

In 15th place, Steven Spielberg’s Lincoln debuted to an estimated $900,000 at 11 locations. That translates to an $81,818 per-theater average, which is second-best ever for a movie in more than 10 locations (behind Precious).

Really, Precious? Man, not even a beloved dead president can compete with Oprah.

It’s also third-highest in 2012 behind The Master and Moonrise Kingdom. The historical drama’s audience skewed male (55 percent) and much older (67 percent over the age of 35), and they awarded the movie a great “A” CinemaScore. The real test, though, comes next weekend when Lincoln attempts to reach mainstream crowds in at least 1,500 theaters. [BoxOfficeMojo]

In retrospect, it was probably a smart move of Spielberg to cut out that opening scene where Abraham Lincoln walks by the camera with his huge dong hanging out and it shows him peeing for five minutes. Getting that PG-13 really helped.