Yeah, Bond has a strange history, Lazenby almost killed the light the series had, then it was the franchise starting to lose popularity throghout Moore's run, until it almost died with Timothy Dalton and the end of the Cold War. Goldeneye saved it at the right time, and interestingly enough, that film's popularity was followed by disapointments, losing its momentum entirely, around 10 years later they had to reboot, even though Goldeneye itself had been a sort of rebrand for the series post-cold war.
Seems like right now the film series is once again at the very top, regarding box office yearly grosses, it hasn't been this high since around the Sean Connery era, when it usualy placed among the top 3-5 highest grossing movies of the year.