In a sign of high confidence, Paramount will be screening “Mission: Impossible — Dead Reckoning Part One” for critics a whole month before its actual release. The film will be seen on June 16th and 26th, the review embargo lifts on July 5th.
The $290 million sequel is the seventh ‘Mission: Impossible’ film, but it’s also coming off what have, arguably, been the three best movies of the franchise: ‘Ghost Protocol,’ ‘Rogue Nation’ and ‘Fallout.’
The film clocks in at 2 hours 36 minutes, the original cut that test-screened in February was 3 hours. Bob Bakish, president of Paramount, actually confessed that he wasn’t down with the 185 minute cut of the film: “It’s still too long, they’ve got to cut it.”
Regardless, the film comes with very high expectations and reactions from this past winter’s two test screenings were very good. As the old adage goes, never bet against Tom Cruise.