Box Office Predictions: Mission: Impossible- Dead Reckoning Part One to have franchise best opening

Hayley Atwell, Mission: Impossible, Dead Reckoning, Tom Cruise

This weekend sees only one major new release, but its a big one! One year after Tom Cruise came barreling back to theaters and saved the movie industry as we know it, he is back again to save it from a summer of unexpected box office bombs with Mission: Impossible- Dead Reckoning Part One.

We do have a bit of a leg up on our predictions with this one as it actually opened yesterday where it pulled in around $16 million with $7 million of that coming from Tuesday previews (that number is preliminary for now until official Wednesday numbers are released from the studio.) Tracking right now has the film hitting a little over $90 million for the 5-day haul with about $65 million of that coming on the weekend. Having seen the film and absolutely loving it, combined with stellar reviews (including an impressive 9/10 from our own Chris Bumbray) and strong word of mouth, I think this one can get higher. The only thing standing in its way is its runtime, at two hours and forty three minutes, Dead Reckoning is the longest film in the series by 16 minutes (Fallout came in at two hours and twenty seven minutes.) Because of that, the number of showings in a day is impacted, but from what I can tell, from my local theater at least, is that all of these show times are nearly sold out.

If we look at the openings of the other films in he franchise we see that Mission: Impossible was always a a massive property for Paramount. The original Brian De Palma directed film opened in 1996 to $45.4 million and ended its domestic run with $180.9 million ($457.6 worldwide), 2000’s John Woo directed Mission: Impossible II kicked off with $57.8 million, ending its domestic run with $215.4 million ($546.3 million worldwide). Despite those two films being highly entertaining in their own right, I feel the franchise really came into its own when J.J Abrams came on board to direct 2006’s Mission: Impossible III, which saw a debut weekend of $47.7 million with a $134 million domestic finish ($398.4 million worldwide). From there the series became unstoppable as each subsequent film could easily be called one of the best action films ever made. That began with 2011’s Brad Bird directed Mission: Impossible- Ghost Protocol which saw its wide debut weekend at $44.1 million before finishing its domestic run with $209.3 million ($694.7 million worldwide). 2015 would see Oscar Winner Christopher McQuarrie make his Impossible debut behind the camera with Mission: Impossible- Rogue Nation which saw a $55.5 million debut before netting $195 million at the domestic box office ($682.7 million worldwide). McQuarrie would become the first director to helm more than one film in the series when he stepped back behind the lens for 2018’s Mission: Impossible- Fallout which saw a $61.2 million opening with a $220.1 million domestic finish (791.6 million worldwide.) (McQuarrie again returns for both Dead Reckoning Part One and Part Two due for release next June.)

Now, the one thing you may notice from those numbers is this: none of them were massive triple digit openers. They were all solid debut weekends that had great word of mouth propel them to tremendous final totals. That is the beauty of a Tom Cruise film, he puts so much effort into making sure what he is making is going to be something that the audience is going to thoroughly enjoy and because of that, audiences show up for his films over and over again. I have only seen Dead Reckoning Part One a single time so far, but I can not wait to see it again! Mission: Impossible- Dead Reckoning Part One will undoubtedly be the highest opening of all the Mission: Impossible films, but I genuinely think that strong word of mouth will have this one opening far above any predictions I have seen so far. I wouldn’t be surprised if the 3-day total gets it to the $85-$90 million mark while its 5-day take hits around $120 million. That is a bold prediction and I may be way off, but I just think people have been disappointed so much this summer with things like Indiana Jones and the Dial of Destiny and The Flash that we have been waiting for something like this to come along, something of absolute quality, to throw our money at and say “THIS is what we want to see!”

Of course Mission: Impossible- Dead Reckoning Part One is not the only big story going on at the box office this week, the Angel Studios sleeper Sound of Freedom has become almost a zeitgeist level hit. It all began when the Jim Caviezel fronted film took number one from Indiana Jones and the Dial of Destiny at the Independence Day box office when it pulled in $14.2 million on just that day alone. Audiences continued to show up through the weekend when they propelled this independent film that was shot over five years ago, to a third place finish with a $19.6 million weekend. Word of mouth continued to spread as the film actually leap frogged the weekend champion, Insidious: The Red Door to take first place at the box office on both Monday and Tuesday of this week. Due to how front loaded horror films are, I would not be surprised if Sound of Freedom continues its tremendous run and lands in second place this weekend with around $15 million. It will be a photo finish between the two, but Sound of Freedom seems to be a movie its ardent fans are getting behind. You can check out Chris Bumbray’s 6/10 review here.

Indiana Jones and the Dial of Destiny will look to even out its box office after two weeks of not great headlines, however with Mission: Impossible hitting the same demographics as Indy, this may be another weekend with a sharp decline. My prediction is a 55% drop off for a weekend around $13 million. Rounding out the top five will more than likely be the Pixar film Elemental as it continues its strong word of mouth campaign with small week to week drops. I was finally able to see Elemental this past Tuesday and was pretty surprised to see my theater was nearly sold out. Of course with that $200 million budget, the film needed to open way higher than it did in order for these small decreases to actually matter in the long run.

Do you plan on checking out Mission: Impossible- Dead Reckoning Part 1 this weekend? Let us know your thoughts in the comments and don’t forget to check back on Saturday when we have a brief update on where the box office numbers are heading.

TOP 5 PREDICTIONS