As I like to mention from time to time, Tom Cruise’s
peak stardom period (1992-2005) was at least partially an era when $60
million was a big budget, $200m worldwide was an unquestionable success,
and a $35m weekend was huge for anything not involving Batman or
dinosaurs eating people. As such, despite the fact that Tom Cruise has
been one of the biggest movie stars in the world for nearly 30 years,
one of his films racking up $20m in a single day is still a huge
achievement. Mission: Impossible Rogue Nation earned $20.3m MMM -0.15%
yesterday, off a $4m Thursday preview, becoming the second-best
biggest opening day for a Tom Cruise movie in his long career and the
biggest opening Friday for a film that didn’t open on a Wednesday.
It’s behind the opening Wednesday of War of the Worlds ($21.25m in 2005). Heck, it’s his biggest single day gross ever behind the Wed, Fri ($21.9m), and Sat ($23.1m) grosses of said Spielberg-directed alien invasion film and the $22.1m Saturday of Mission: Impossible II in 2000. So it’s basically Tom Cruise’s fifth-biggest single day ever. Obviously inflation would put a few of his 1990′s-era openers in that arena (adjusted for inflation, Brian DePalma’s Mission: Impossible made $30m on its first Saturday), but for the purposes of this specific film in this specific time, this is a fantastic result thus far.
Another thing about Tom Cruise movies is that they often didn’t open huge. Rather they had long legs on account of them usually being pretty darn good in an era when quality could actually extend a movie’s theatrical shelf life. Maybe I’m being overoptimistic and presumptive based on one day of national play, but yeah, Mission: Impossible Rogue Nation is a terrific action thriller and I cannot imagine that it won’t hold out as summer winds down over the next six weeks. Another reason this opening day is worthwhile is that it means that the original tracking, which pegged the film’s debut at $40 million, was off by a lot.
Now to be fair, that tracking was done nearly a month ago and I imagine some of the “prediction versus reality” bump was due to the rave reviews and positive buzz that the film has built up since the review embargo dropped last Friday. Yeah sure, audiences knew and liked the last Mission: Impossible, but the previews didn’t necessarily promise anything new to the table, beyond Rebecca Ferguson’s femme fatale character. She’s great in the movie, but the marketing unsurprisingly sold her somewhat as a “fighting f*** toy.” But in the end the reviews assured fans that they were getting more of what they liked last time around, and they responded accordingly.
Tracking is not an exact science and is supposed to be a secret in-studio tool for adjusting marketing in the run up to the release. It’s only been in the last five years or so that the numbers have been released into the public, treated as newsworthy “set-in-stone predictions,” and often used as a weapon to preemptively declare a movie to be a failure before a single ticket was purchased. Either the tracking was wrong or the tracking was right and Paramount/Viacom VIAB +1.16% Inc. made the necessary course corrections to get a bigger debut weekend, in which case the system worked as intended.
Predicting the debut weekend from this $20 million opening day is a little challenging because the last Mission: Impossible movie had such a weird release strategy. It opened with $12.4 million on 425 IMAX screens five days before its nationwide Wednesday-of-Christmas weekend debut. It made $29m over the Fri-Sun portion of that weekend had had earned $76m by the end of Christmas and $140m by the end of the year, eventually legging it to $209m domestic and earning a shocking $694m worldwide, Cruise’s personal best.
Even the would-be disappointment of Mission: Impossible III ($47.7m in 2006) opening in a much less front-loaded era. That film had a 2.87x weekend multiplier, a figure that would give Rogue Nation a $58.3m weekend, his third biggest behind Mission: Impossible II ($57.8m in 2000) and War of the Worlds ($64m in 2005). A more realistic 2.6x multiplier gets the $150 million spy sequel a still-strong $52.8m weekend, also Cruise’s third biggest. I have to think that the quality of the picture, as well as the fact that it’s not a “run out and see it now” choice for general moviegoers, means that we may have a debut closer to $55m than $50m, not that either figure wouldn’t be a win.
And even Edge of Tomorrow and Oblivion had over/under 2.8x weekend multipliers, although those were for much smaller debut weekends and for non-sequels. The film is dropping in 40% of its overseas markets this weekend as well, and the film earned $26.4m overseas yesterday. Offhand, it’s looking like a $52m weekend in America, a $60m overseas debut, and a $112m worldwide bow for the spy thriller. For the moment, quality has won out and Mission: Impossible Rogue Nation is looking at a rock-solid debut weekend. By the way, 16% of that $20.3m in America came from IMAX.
The only other opening is Warner Bros./New Line/Time Warner TWX -0.45% Inc.’s new Vacation sequel/reboot. The film opened on Wednesday with $3.8 million and earned another $2.5m on Thursday. As such, its $4.5m Friday brings its cume to $10.822m thus far. It’s not a great performance, as we’re probably looking at a $13m Fri-Sun and $19m Wed-Sun performance. The Ed Helms/Christina Applegate comedy, which is a sequel to the original Vacation and (I presume?) its three sequels, cost around $31m to produce.
I kinda thought this one would break a little bigger as there is a solid history of strong opening and leggy R-rated comedies in late July/early August. But alas, it was not to be, as the reviews were terrible, the “brand” had no pull for audiences, none of the stars are “openers,” and those seeking R-rated comedy thrills opted for Trainwreck instead. It’s another good reminder to Hollywood that not every decades-old franchise has brand awareness value and needs a revamp.
It’s behind the opening Wednesday of War of the Worlds ($21.25m in 2005). Heck, it’s his biggest single day gross ever behind the Wed, Fri ($21.9m), and Sat ($23.1m) grosses of said Spielberg-directed alien invasion film and the $22.1m Saturday of Mission: Impossible II in 2000. So it’s basically Tom Cruise’s fifth-biggest single day ever. Obviously inflation would put a few of his 1990′s-era openers in that arena (adjusted for inflation, Brian DePalma’s Mission: Impossible made $30m on its first Saturday), but for the purposes of this specific film in this specific time, this is a fantastic result thus far.
Another thing about Tom Cruise movies is that they often didn’t open huge. Rather they had long legs on account of them usually being pretty darn good in an era when quality could actually extend a movie’s theatrical shelf life. Maybe I’m being overoptimistic and presumptive based on one day of national play, but yeah, Mission: Impossible Rogue Nation is a terrific action thriller and I cannot imagine that it won’t hold out as summer winds down over the next six weeks. Another reason this opening day is worthwhile is that it means that the original tracking, which pegged the film’s debut at $40 million, was off by a lot.
Now to be fair, that tracking was done nearly a month ago and I imagine some of the “prediction versus reality” bump was due to the rave reviews and positive buzz that the film has built up since the review embargo dropped last Friday. Yeah sure, audiences knew and liked the last Mission: Impossible, but the previews didn’t necessarily promise anything new to the table, beyond Rebecca Ferguson’s femme fatale character. She’s great in the movie, but the marketing unsurprisingly sold her somewhat as a “fighting f*** toy.” But in the end the reviews assured fans that they were getting more of what they liked last time around, and they responded accordingly.
Tracking is not an exact science and is supposed to be a secret in-studio tool for adjusting marketing in the run up to the release. It’s only been in the last five years or so that the numbers have been released into the public, treated as newsworthy “set-in-stone predictions,” and often used as a weapon to preemptively declare a movie to be a failure before a single ticket was purchased. Either the tracking was wrong or the tracking was right and Paramount/Viacom VIAB +1.16% Inc. made the necessary course corrections to get a bigger debut weekend, in which case the system worked as intended.
Predicting the debut weekend from this $20 million opening day is a little challenging because the last Mission: Impossible movie had such a weird release strategy. It opened with $12.4 million on 425 IMAX screens five days before its nationwide Wednesday-of-Christmas weekend debut. It made $29m over the Fri-Sun portion of that weekend had had earned $76m by the end of Christmas and $140m by the end of the year, eventually legging it to $209m domestic and earning a shocking $694m worldwide, Cruise’s personal best.
Even the would-be disappointment of Mission: Impossible III ($47.7m in 2006) opening in a much less front-loaded era. That film had a 2.87x weekend multiplier, a figure that would give Rogue Nation a $58.3m weekend, his third biggest behind Mission: Impossible II ($57.8m in 2000) and War of the Worlds ($64m in 2005). A more realistic 2.6x multiplier gets the $150 million spy sequel a still-strong $52.8m weekend, also Cruise’s third biggest. I have to think that the quality of the picture, as well as the fact that it’s not a “run out and see it now” choice for general moviegoers, means that we may have a debut closer to $55m than $50m, not that either figure wouldn’t be a win.
And even Edge of Tomorrow and Oblivion had over/under 2.8x weekend multipliers, although those were for much smaller debut weekends and for non-sequels. The film is dropping in 40% of its overseas markets this weekend as well, and the film earned $26.4m overseas yesterday. Offhand, it’s looking like a $52m weekend in America, a $60m overseas debut, and a $112m worldwide bow for the spy thriller. For the moment, quality has won out and Mission: Impossible Rogue Nation is looking at a rock-solid debut weekend. By the way, 16% of that $20.3m in America came from IMAX.
The only other opening is Warner Bros./New Line/Time Warner TWX -0.45% Inc.’s new Vacation sequel/reboot. The film opened on Wednesday with $3.8 million and earned another $2.5m on Thursday. As such, its $4.5m Friday brings its cume to $10.822m thus far. It’s not a great performance, as we’re probably looking at a $13m Fri-Sun and $19m Wed-Sun performance. The Ed Helms/Christina Applegate comedy, which is a sequel to the original Vacation and (I presume?) its three sequels, cost around $31m to produce.
I kinda thought this one would break a little bigger as there is a solid history of strong opening and leggy R-rated comedies in late July/early August. But alas, it was not to be, as the reviews were terrible, the “brand” had no pull for audiences, none of the stars are “openers,” and those seeking R-rated comedy thrills opted for Trainwreck instead. It’s another good reminder to Hollywood that not every decades-old franchise has brand awareness value and needs a revamp.
In limited release news, The End of the Tour (a Jason
Segel/Jesse Eisenberg biopic about David Foster Wallace) opened in for
theaters courtesy of A24. It should make around $147,000 for a $36,795
per-screen-average. That’s a decent number and hopefully it will expand
to a theater near you as summer winds down. A Lego Brickumentary dropped in 100 theaters courtesy of Radius-TWC and should earn just $47k for its trouble.
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