Mission: Impossible 8, not only has a new name, but a new release date! MI:8, previously known as Mission: Impossible – Dead Reckoning Part Two moves from 28th June 28 2024 to 23rd May 23 2025. This is down to the movie being forced to halt production amid the ongoing SAG-AFTRA strike and they are now claiming it won’t be completed in time to open next summer.
Now call me cynical but Mission: Impossible – Dead Reckoning Part One wasn’t quite the success they were hoping for, so perhaps the strike is a golden opportunity to change a few things, in particular the marketing for Cruise’s grand finale in this franchise. The name change suggests this could be the case.
MI: Dead Box Office
There’s no doubt that Paramount and Skydance were hoping to capitalise from Cruise’s recent success with Top Gun: Maverick which was his biggest-ever hit with an astonishing worldwide box office of $1.49 billion. However, MI:DRP1 (I’m not bloody typing that title anymore!) pulled in $567.5M worldwide which is a big drop considering Mission: Impossible: 4, 5, and 6 all hit around the $700 – $800M mark.
I wouldn’t say the drop in box office is so much a negative towards the movie itself because it was your typical Tom Cruise action spectacular. But I do admit, it lacks a certain something from previous entries (apart from 2 because that shit is practically unwatchable). MI:DRP1 has the action, the stunts, the fights, the hot women, the suspense, it literally has everything and yet I cannot quite put my finger on what that “certain something” is that’s missing.
The Barbenheimer Effect
The studios have claimed will MI:DRP1 didn’t have access to Imax screens because Oppenheimer had already booked them all up, and that was the main factor in disappointing sales. Personally, I think it was down to the fact you had the whole Barbie vs Oppenheimer PR machines in full flow, and they were caught off-guard.
Launching the latest Tom Cruise flick with those two juggernauts suggests they either underestimated the power of Barbenheimer or it was just plain arrogance that they thought they would win this three-way without having to put much effort in because of Cruise. After all, Barbie raked in $1.44B and Oppenheimer $942M so it’s not like the paying public were staying at home waiting for the movies to crop up on streaming channels.
Mission: Impossible 8 now lands on Memorial Day and has a three-week exclusive Imax run. Don’t be surprised to see MI:DRP1 rolled out at Imax just before in order to get those rookie numbers back up into the Cruiseisphere.
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