Mission Impossible – Dead Reckoning Part One took a record-setting second-weekend dive at the domestic box office.
Franchise fatigue appears to be a real issue.
Early weekend reports said Dead Reckoning would hold pretty well, with only a 54 percent drop compared to its opening weekend. By Monday morning, however, the truth was much more dire. The seventh chapter of this film franchise collapsed by 64.3 percent, which is the biggest drop in its 27-year history.
The previous three entries—Ghost Protocol (2011), Rogue Nation (2015), and Fallout (2018) — held much better in weekend two: -0.5 percent (during Christmas), -48 percent, and -42 percent, respectively.
As of today, Dead Reckoning has grossed just $119 million domestic and another $252 million overseas. A worldwide gross of $371 million after 12 days of release is pretty solid but far from great. Based on its reported production and promotion price tag of around $400 million, Dead Reckoning will need to top $800 million just to break even. As of right now, that is no longer looking like a sure thing.
So what happened? After the blazing success of Top Gun: Maverick last year, everyone believed star Tom Cruise could do no wrong. After two years of anti-science lockdowns and five years of woketardery, Cruise delivered exactly what people craved: Entertainment with a capital “E.”
First off, I’m not writing a Dead Reckoning Part One obituary. Success or failure always depends on the overseas box office; no one knows how that will shake out. The domestic box office is a different story, a legitimate story of franchise fatigue.
If you look at the biggest box office stories of 2023 so far, you’re talking about Barbie, Oppenheimer, Super Mario Bros., and Sound of Freedom. All four over-performed, and what they share in common is one thing: each is an original. No sequels, no prequels, and no remakes (unless you want to be pedantic and count that awful and largely forgotten live-action Super Mario Bros. movie from 1993). These are original properties offering the public something they haven’t seen before.
What did Dead Reckoning have to offer that was new, that we haven’t seen six times already? Other than Cruise’s latest death-defying stunt, nothing. And Tom Cruise performing a death-defying stunt is nothing new. The stunt is new, but not the gimmick.
Add to that the fact that Dead Reckoning is two hours and forty-three minutes long. As entertaining and fun as it sounds, there’s no real draw to invest all that time in. So what we’re talking about is three hours of More Of The Same when we have no stake in the characters. Does anyone care about Ethan Hunt’s emotional journey? Is anyone wondering how these characters have evolved since 2018? Does anyone care where they end up? No. And that’s what makes it More Of The Same.
That’s also what distinguished Top Gun: Maverick. After a 36-year hiatus, moviegoers were interested in seeing where those characters ended up. Plus, there hadn’t been six previous Top Gun movies or three Top Gun movies released in just the last ten years. Maverick felt new, especially after 15 years of superhero, superhero, superhero…
Despite all the goodwill I feel towards Cruise and his desire to entertain and my previous affection for the Mission: Impossible franchise, nothing is pulling me towards Dead Reckoning, just as nothing pulled me towards Fast X, Indiana Jones and the Dial of Kathleen Kennedy Needs To Be Fired, or any of these other never-ending franchises.
Oppenheimer and Sound of Freedom are the only movies on my must-see list this summer. Even Equalizer 3 is giving me the shrugs.
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