Summary
- Mission: Impossible 7 had a strong start at the 2023 summer box office but failed to maintain momentum throughout the later weeks of July, making it a box office letdown.
- The film's high production budget and competition from other movies like Barbie and Oppenheimer contributed to its underperformance.
- Despite the relative disappointment, the outcome increases the likelihood of a major Cruise comeback in the expected Top Gun 3.
Mission: Impossible – Dead Reckoning Part One was released in the first half of July with the expectations of it becoming a major box office hit. It got off to a fantastic start in its opening weekend with just shy of a $55 million revenue, solidifying its footing as a prominent and longstanding action franchise with Tom Cruise in the spotlight. Upon its release, the Christopher McQuarrie film showed early signs that it could become the most profitable Mission: Impossible movie of the entire franchise. After weeks at the highly competitive 2023 summer box office, this turned out not to be the case.
By mid-August, which is widely considered the end of the summer blockbuster season with the string of Fall film festivals on the horizon, Mission: Impossible – Dead Reckoning Part One still remains in theaters but has not found the legs of endurance it would have liked to throughout the later weeks of July. Despite generating a relatively low worldwide revenue for a Tom Cruise action franchise film, Dead Reckoning Part One is still one of the biggest films of Cruise's career. While Mission: Impossible 7 set itself up for a tough road to break even with a production budget of nearly $300 million, it is still one of the top 12 highest-grossing movies of 2023 in the U.S.
Mission: Impossible 7's Box Office Is Tom Cruise's 7th Highest - But Still A Big Letdown
Despite being the seventh highest-grossing movie of Tom Cruise's career, Mission: Impossible – Dead Reckoning Part One is still relatively a box office letdown. The film's staggering budget of roughly $290 million placed in it a somewhat insurmountable situation from the start, although the heightened figure was partially inflated due to the unexpected costs of delays due to the COVID-19 pandemic. Compared to other Mission: Impossible films and not adjusting for inflation, Dead Reckoning Part One has currently only made more at the global box office than two of its previous films in the franchise, Mission: Impossible III and the 1996 original.
Mission: Impossible 7 needs a box office total of roughly $800 million to cement its success, a goal that it is unlikely to sur at this point of the summer. Based on its box office performance charts presented by The Numbers, its worldwide revenue is currently projected to plateau in a similar fashion to the very first Mission: Impossible. This is a considerable letdown taking into that the production budget of the first film was a mere $80 million. With a budget of over 3.5x the original movie, Dead Reckoning Part One had high hopes to potentially become the first billion-dollar installment of the franchise, making it an overall disappointment.
Why Mission: Impossible - Dead Reckoning Part 1 Underperformed At The Box Office
Mission: Impossible – Dead Reckoning Part One is a box office letdown primarily due to its stiff competition with the cultural phenomenon of Barbenheimer. Both Barbie and Oppenheimer took over the global box office only one week after the release of Dead Reckoning Part One, which didn't give the film much of a chance to build momentum at the 2023 summer box office. In fact, many of the IMAX screens that showed Dead Reckoning Part One in its first week in theaters were handed off to Nolan's Oppenheimer, which could have played a factor in the lack of appeal for the seventh installment of the Mission: Impossible franchise.
For context, all of Tom Cruise's films have had significantly smaller budgets than Mission: Impossible – Dead Reckoning Part One, making this box office letdown mostly due to the unprecedented nature of the film's production. The incredibly high budget of major franchise movies such as Mission: Impossible and Indiana Jones is a clear indication for studios that more monetary investment does not guarantee more of a financial return in the modern theatrical climate. If the film had been able to release even one or two weeks prior to the release of both Oppenheimer and Barbie, the latter of which could be 2023's second billion-dollar movie, then it could have fared much better at the global box office.
Mission: Impossible 7 Shows Tom Cruise Still Needs Other Franchises (But He's Struggled)
Despite facing a number of atypical conditions that likely combined to thwart some of Mission: Impossible 7's success at the worldwide box office, the underwhelming performance of the film indicates that Cruise is still reliant on some of his other major franchises. Cruise held the acclaim of 2022's box office phenomenon with his Top Gun: Maverick release, making it a lofty task to carry the summer box office for two back-to-back summers. With Top Gun 3 a near certainty on the horizon at some point in the foreseeable future, the shortcomings of Mission: Impossible – Dead Reckoning Part One proves that Cruise should continue his of both major franchises.
Mission: Impossible 7 was initially marketed as the penultimate installment of the franchise with Cruise in the leading role before it the door was still left open for more movies after 2024's Dead Reckoning Part Two after 7's release. Fans of the Cruise franchise could be waiting to return to theaters for the supposedly final display of Cruise as the iconic Ethan Hunt. Many potential viewers of the film could fit into a demographic that is less likely to go to the movies after COVID-19. Barbie was the Top Gun: Maverick of 2023 which Mission: Impossible 7 had hoped it could be, with reportedly 1 in 4 Barbie viewers returning to the theater for the first time since the pandemic (via IndieWire).
Mission: Impossible 7's Box Office Makes Top Gun 3 With Tom Cruise More Likely
The bright side of the disappointing box office outcome for Mission: Impossible – Dead Reckoning Part One means that Top Gun 3 is more likely than ever to feature Cruise in the film. Cruise's ion for his movies which is consistently demonstrated by his extraordinary physical stunts in the Mission: Impossible franchise is indelibly felt on a personal level by the actor. The letdown of Mission: Impossible 7 will likely catapult Cruise into another campaign to have the most celebrated movie of the summer at the box office in the near future. While it was previously unconfirmed just how big of a role Cruise would play in the expected Top Gun 3, the unfortunate box office fate of Mission: Impossible – Dead Reckoning Part One almost guarantees a major Cruise comeback.
Source: The Numbers, IndieWire
