On Friday, I had reported on the underperformance of ‘Mission: Impossible 7’ at the box-office, and it didn’t get any better this weekend.
The fact that “Mission: Impossible — Dead Reckoning Part One” only made $56 million in the last three days is a major cause for concern, not just for the Tom Cruise franchise, but also for the industry at large.
Just to compare, 2018’s “Mission: Impossible —Fallout,” the last installment, made $61 million. ‘Dead Reckoning’ has made a total of $80 million since last Tuesday.
Not even glowing reviews were enough to push ‘Dead Reckoning’ forward, ditto Tom Cruise’s name stamped all over its marketing. To make matters worse, a lot of its screens will be swallowed up by Barbenheimer next weekend.
It’s been a really rough summer at the movies. Not only is Tinseltown on strike, but box office receipts this summer have been bad. Audiences seem to be turned off by Hollywood. What happened? Can it ever recover?
International grosses might help ‘Dead Reckoning’ escape the same fate as “The Flash” and “Indiana Jones and the Dial of Destiny,” but it’ll be interesting to see if it has any legs domestically. Word of mouth has been strong, but that might not be enough.
I’m flabbergasted at how “Sound of Freedom,” driven by strong word-of-mouth, amongst its conservative demo, is already at $85 million, on a limp $15 million budget. It finished second this weekend and will easily cross the $100 million mark by next Sunday.
Now, we await “Barbeheimer” weekend, wondering if both those movies can lift up a dulled summer movie season.