“Mission: Impossible – Dead Reckoning Part One” netted $8.3 million at the box office on Thursday, pushing the action sequel’s North American gross to $23.8 million after two days of release.
The film, which finds Tom Cruise’s Ethan Hunt hurtling off cliffs, fighting knife-wielding bad guys on trains and evading pursuers while driving a Fiat through the streets of Rome, was incredibly expensive to produce. Shot during the pandemic (with all the attendant shutdowns, delays and health protocols that were a staple of the COVID era), the budget on the film ballooned to $290 million. So “Mission: Impossible” will need to generate a lot of repeat business if it’s going to turn a profit, and it needs to boom at the global box office.
Right now, the film is looking to generate roughly $80 million for its first five days in theaters, which is slightly below expectations. Initially, tracking suggested that the movie would earn closer to $90 million in ticket sales. That said, the “Mission: Impossible” films tend to attract an older audience, which doesn’t always turn up on opening weekend. That could give the film some impressive endurance even if its debut is softer than projected.
Cruise’s previous impossible mission, 2018’s “Fallout,” collected $61 million in its debut, establishing a franchise record. However, that movie didn’t have a five-day launch, making comparisons difficult.
Christopher McQuarrie returned to direct “Dead Reckoning” after overseeing the two previous installments. This one finds Hunt and crew battling a much scarier version of ChatGPT in an all-powerful artificial intelligence force known as “The Entity.” Hayley Atwell, Ving Rhames, Simon Pegg, Esai Morales, Vanessa Kirby and Pom Klementieff round out the cast. Paramount Pictures produced the movie with Skydance Media.
