Mission: Impossible - Dead Reckoning Part One is suffering the Barbenheimer phenomenon. While the cinematic industry went through one of its best weekends in recent history thanks to the debut of Greta Gerwig's and Christopher Nolan's latest films, Paramount Pictures latest release has fall hard at the box office after a great opening.
When the newest adventure in the action franchise starring Tom Cruise hit theaters a few days ago, it did it with a record-breaking number for the saga of $80 million dollars, but this was achieved on a five-day opening since the movie was available since Wednesday, July 12. The movie lead that weekend, but now that it had to compete against two of the most anticipated projects of the year, it suffered a major step back.
According to The Direct, Mission: Impossible 7 has dropped for a 64% gross comparing its debut weekend with the past one, earning only $19.5 million dollars at the domestic box office. This has given the movie a new title, but not a good one, becoming the highest drop of the entire saga, which was previously held by Mission: Impossible 2 with a 53.3%.
Last year, Tom Cruise starred in one of the most successful movies at the box office, Top Gun: Maverick. The long-awaited sequel to the 1986 film had an amazing opening of $126,707,459 according to Box Office Mojo, and end its theatrical run with $718,732,821, domestically. So the Mission: Impossible - Dead Reckoning Part One numbers are actually a huge disappointment for the studio.
Barbie and Oppenheimer Shone Together in an Amazing Weekend for Cinema
Warner Bros.
Although Mission: Impossible 7 set back is bad news for movie franchises, the incredible numbers Barbie and Oppenheimer delivered on their opening weekend is nothing but great step forward for cinemas, especially during the crisis Hollywood is going through right now.
After being one of the industries that suffered the most during the pandemic, Barbenheimer debut became the fourth-highest opening weekend in all cinema history domestically, and the best one since Avengers: Endgame's debut, which holds the first place at the top, followed by Avengers: Infinity War and Star Wars: The Force Awakens. This means Barbie and Oppenheimer have managed to deliver one of the best opening weekends ever without being part of any major franchise or saga.
Barbie closed the weekend reaching $337 million dollars worldwide, with a budget of $145 million. Oppenheimer earned $174 million, beating all expectations, with a budget of $100 million dollars (via Variety). In some way, the success of both movies is thanks to the fans campaign supporting the two projects, which resulted in many people assisting to a double feature.
This year has already had some amazing releases at the box office such as the Super Mario Bros. Movie, Spider-Man: Across the Spider-Verse, Guardians of the Galaxy Vol. 3 or John Wick: Chapter 4, but some major franchises have also underperformed, such as Fast X or The Flash, with the latter becoming one of the worst openings in DC's history.