Is $300 Million the line that can’t be crossed?

No Time to Die poster

Has the movie industry reached the limit for the production costs of films? Specifically, is $300 million it?

The most recent James Bond film, 2021’s No Time To Die, reached that level, according to Variety. in a 2020 report. This year’s Indiana Jones and the Dial of Destiny also had that level of spending after reshoots. Superhero movies such as The Flash, reportedly didn’t get that high but the box office didn’t support such spending.

It may be time for the movie industry to re-examine spending, especially for aging franchises. Bond has been around since 1962 (film-wise), Indiana Jones since 1981. Even The Flash was around since 2014 on television. Was 2023 the time for a Flash movie? (The original version of The Flash was created in 1940 and the version of The Flash in TV and movies was created in comics in 1956.)

This week, we’re getting the seventh Mission: Impossible movie from Tom Cruise. It has a big budget and has gotten a lot of positive reviews. A recurring theme of reviews is that Cruise trying to save movies. That’s an indication of how uncertain the situation is.

UPDATE: Here is a reminder related to No Time to Die. During the period when Danny Boyle was going to direct, the art department constructed a rocket — A ROCKET replica– that cost a lot of money. The art department also built a Russian gulag set in Canada. Neither appeared in the movie. That was TOTALLY WASTED SPENDING. Eon was responsible for the waste.

Critics weigh in on Mission: Impossible 7

Mission: Impossible Dead Reckoning Part One poster

Critic reviews have arrived ahead of this week opening’s of Mission: Impossible Dead Reckoning Part One. Reviews compiled by the Rotten Tomatoes website were nearly unanimously positive as of July 10.

The Tom Cruise movie is the biggest spy-related production of the year. The production endured delays related to COVID-19. The marketing of the film emphasizes major stunts.

What follows are some non-spoiler excerpts from some reviews.

ANN HORNADAY, THE WASHINGTON POST: “Like ‘Top Gun: Maverick’ last year, ‘Dead Reckoning’ might be just what we need right now: a two-hour-plus session of cinematic self-care, wherein the chases, fights, mayhem, exegetical speeches and jaw-dropping derring-do knit together to form a comforting weighted blanket of pure escapism and reassurance.”

RICHARD LAWSON, VANITY FAIR: The movie is “a massive attempt to once again thrill cinemagoers, who are now in much shorter supply than they were even five years ago. The gamble of Dead Reckoning, with numerous locations, a gargantuan budget, and literally death-defying stunts, is significant. We’ll have to see how it pays off at the box office. On creative terms, though, the risk mostly pays off.”

TOMRIS LAFFLY, THEWRAP: “Still, it is Cruise himself that unlocks this extraordinary and, in the end, surprisingly poignant franchise start to finish…Lest we forget, he is one hell of a dramatic actor with the sharpest of blue-eyed stares, carrying the weight of a rootless character through several savagely emotional moments, one of them, genuinely heartbreaking. What better mission could there be this summer other than witnessing our perpetual cinematic maverick deliver yet another full-scale cinematic experience? Should you choose to accept it, of course.”

KEVIN MAHER: THE TIMES: “It feels like a movie that’s been assembled by an inattentive monkey, or a luckless studio intern who was handed a bucket of half-completed rushes and told, ‘Go make a Covid-beating blockbuster out of that.'” (The review is behind a paywall. This is the excerpt offered up by Rotten Tomatoes.)

JUSTIN CHANG, LOS ANGELES TIMES: “The task of saving that world once again falls to Ethan Hunt, a.k.a. Tom Cruise — and if the world can’t be saved, well, maybe at least the movies can. Or can they? Even if not, just try and stop Cruise, now 61, from taking the weight of the entire industry on his shoulders.”

PETER BRADHAW, THE GUARDIAN: “Seven films! Daniel Craig got sick of 007 after just five. But at 61, Cruise looks better than ever and pretty much wedded to the (Impossible Missions Force). Other actors his age might be turning to offbeat character turns, but Tom was doing those for Paul Thomas Anderson and Michael Mann 20 years ago. The M:I series is his vocation, and Tom Cruise has single-handedly persuaded us that the action genre has a new respectability and purpose: the box-office savior of the live cinema experience. But I can’t help wondering: does he have an exit strategy for this franchise?”

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