Latest in Mission: Impossible – Dead Reckoning Part One

This summer’s box office is set to hit $4 billion for the 13th time ever, up 16% over last summer. Barbie and Oppenheimer, which together rep 22% of that figure, created a blast radius, finally bringing infrequent moviegoers back to cinemas after Covid had sidelined audiences. However, with the…

UPDATE: A big weekend at the box office with something for everyone and notable milestones including Barbie crossing the $1B global mark while Oppenheimer topped $550M, as we noted earlier. In new plays, Meg 2: The Trench opened to a strong $142M global and Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles: Mutant Mayhem…

Not streaming, nor strikes, nor shell shock from the pandemic kept this July’s domestic box office down with studio tentpoles and a faith-based surprise movie racking up the second-best record for the month with $1.37 billion per Comscore. Warner Bros’ Barbie and Universal’s Oppenheimer were the No…

MONDAY UPDATE, with Barbenheimer actuals: Barbie and Oppenheimer's sophomore weekends have come in higher versus Sunday estimates. The No. 1 movie worldwide for the second frame in a row, Barbie now has a confirmed global cume of $780.7M through yesterday and will cross $800M in short order. In 69…

Director Christopher McQuarrie previously revealed that a flashback segment that would have de-aged Tom Cruise in Mission: Impossible — Dead Reckoning Part One was briefly considered. Now, McQuarrie is saying that the same segment — set in 1989 — also considered offering Julia Roberts a small role as…

MONDAY UPDATE, with actuals: Actuals are in for the weekend's behemoth double-bill with both movies seeing significant upticks now that Sunday is tallied. Warner Bros Barbie has come in with a $356.3M global launch through yesterday, versus the estimated $337M – talk about being in the pink. Meanwhile…

What on earth possessed a whole bunch of us to think pink on Monday night? True, many of us were in a playful mood, me included, because Warner Bros Discovery was hosting a series of multimedia screenings of Barbie across several screens at two multiplexes in central London. It's following hot on the…

What was it W. B. Yeats wrote, that line Joan Didion lifted and twisted in her essay "Slouching Towards Bethlehem," about West Coast chaos in 1967? Things fall apart; the center cannot hold. That's how it felt on Thursday, a few minutes before lunch with some seasoned film executive-friends at the…

SUNDAY UPDATE: Paramount/Skydance's Mission: Impossible – Dead Reckoning Part One lit the fuse this weekend with a $235M global start. Of that, $155M is from 70 international box office markets which rep 93% of the offshore footprint (Japan is notably still to come).  Excluding China, where there…

SUNDAY AM WRITETHRU — after Saturday PM update…Facts are facts, and Paramount/Skydance’s Mission: Impossible – Dead Reckoning Part One set a 5-day opening domestic record for the franchise with $80M. Paramount is calling the global opening here at $235M, read Nancy’s report here. Indiana Jones and the Dia…

UPDATE SATURDAY AM: In the wake of the older-skewing, very expensive Indiana Jones and the Dial of Destiny stumbling at the box office with an $83.8M Friday-Tuesday domestic start, sources have called upon me to evaluate a similarly priced, older dude franchise sequel at around $300M. That’s this…

EXCLUSIVE: Hayley Atwell predicted that she'd be on strike now. Late Wednesday night, we chatted about her captivating performance opposite Tom Cruise in Mission: Impossible – Dead Reckoning Part One, and of the globe-trotting promotional tour to tubthump the movie — is there a soul on this…