'Mission: Impossible 7' Tops Weekend Box Office With Franchise's Best Five-Day Opening

"Mission: Impossible - Dead Reckoning Part One" unsurprisingly topped the box office for its opening weekend.

Due to its earlier-than-normal release date, the film had a reported five-day opening weekend record at $80 million, per Deadline.

That is the best five-day opening weekend for the franchise in its history, going back to the first film in 1996.

Now there are some caveats here. The film's opening three-day take from Friday through Sunday comes out to an estimated $56.2 million. Meanwhile, the highest opening three-day weekend ever for the franchise was "Mission: Impossible - Fallout" in 2018 with $61.2 million. With this take, "Dead Reckoning Part One" managed to edge out "Mission: Impossible II" from 2000, which had a five-day opening weekend of $78.8 million.

The good news for the new sequel, once again starring Tom Cruise as noble and daring IMF spy Ethan Hunt, is that while the opening weekend came in well below earlier projections, it still opened to about $235 million worldwide. By comparison, Disney and Lucasfilm's "Indiana Jones and the Dial of Destiny," which had a slightly higher three-day opening weekend at $60 million, opened considerably open globally. "Dial of Destiny," which has a comparable budget to "Dead Reckoning Part One" in the range of about $300 million, had a global opening weekend take of about $130 million.

That will at least potentially lighten the sting for Paramount Pictures for the film coming in lower than projected. Deadline's earlier projections estimated about $90 million for the five-day weekend and about $250 million worldwide. So the bad news for the sequel is that it came in lower than expected. That seems to be a recurring theme in recent months of big sequels and big franchise moves not performing to expectations. Case in point, Disney's "Indiana Jones and the Dial of Destiny" or "The Flash" for Warner Bros. and DC Studios. These films generally come along with gargantuan budgets, making the hurdles for them to draw profits much higher.

That said, the new "Mission: Impossible" sequel, the first of a two-part story from writer-director Christopher McQuarrie, does have a few things working in its favor. It's one of the better-reviewed summer blockbusters of the summer with a 96% critic score on Rotten Tomatoes. Its audience score is also high at 95%. Deadline also notes that the film has A CinemaScore grade. That means that "Dead Reckoning Part One" has a good chance of drawing in some repeat viewings with moviegoers or drawing good word of mouth to draw in more ticket sales later on.

Looking at the previous "Mission: Impossible" films, they tend to have very good multipliers with their domestic totals, and they tend to perform well in subsequent weekends, with respectable dropoff percentages. That means "Dead Reckoning Part One" still has a decent shot of drawing well over $200 million domestically and over $750 million worldwide. The numbers to beat would be for "Mission: Impossible Fallout," which drew the highest domestic and worldwide totals for the franchise to date at $220 million domestically and $791 million worldwide.

The major problem is that "Dead Reckoning Part One" is facing some hefty competition this coming week. Christopher Nolan's epic period drama, "Oppenheimer," and the new comedy "Barbie," both arrive in theaters this week with some big expectations and hype behind them. "Oppenheimer" will be getting a lot of those premium format screens that "Mission: Impossible" had for its opening weekend as well, with "Oppenheimer" being presented in IMAX and other premium formats.

Coming in at No. 2 over the weekend, Angel Studios' "Sound of Freedom," starring Jim Caviezel and Mira Sorvino, had another strong weekend, rising 37% in its second frame. That brings its current domestic total to $85.4 million, which is currently climbing.

"Insidious: The Red Door" had a pretty high drop at 60% in its second weekend, bringing in $13 million, after the horror sequel drew the second-best opening weekend of the franchise to date. The good news for "The Red Door" is that due to its low budget of about $16 million, it's guaranteed to be highly profitable. It's now made $58 million domestically and $122 million worldwide, making it a huge success for Screen Gems.

"Indiana Jones and the Dial of Destiny" came in fourth this weekend, bringing in an estimated $12 million after a 56% drop in its third frame. The fifth and final outing of Harrison Ford as the whip-cracking, fedora-wearing archeologist has now made $145 million domestically and $302 million worldwide.

Coming in at fifth over the weekend was Disney and Pixar's "Elemental," which had a fairly decent hold, dropping only 13% and bringing in another $8.7 million. The film has now made $125 million domestically and $311 million worldwide. It's still not great considering the film's large budget at about $200 million, but the film seems to still be finding an audience in later weeks.

"Mission: Impossible Dead Reckoning" was initially scheduled to have "Part Two" drop in June 2024, since the film has still not completed shooting. However, with the actors union, SAG-AFTRA, currently on strike against the Alliance of Motion Picture and Television Producers (AMPTP), that means "Mission: Impossible 8" will not be able to continue shooting until the strike has been resolved. The combined WGA and SAG-AFTRA strikes have halted multiple major film and television productions in their tracks.

According to The Hollywood Reporter, "Dead Reckoning Part Two" was already on a production hiatus as star Cruise and writer-director McQuarrie were on a worldwide press tour to promote "Dead Reckoning Part One." The sequel cannot resume filming until the strike issues with the AMPTP end. That means it's highly likely that "Dead Reckoning Part Two" will have to be pushed back from its current June 28, 2024 release date.

"Mission: Impossible - Dead Reckoning Part One" is out now in theaters. It stars Cruise, Hayley Atwell, Simon Pegg, Ving Rhames, Esai Morales, Pom Klementieff, and Henry Czerny. McQuarrie directs the film from a script he co-wrote with Erik Jendresen.