The Guardian critiques Mission: Impossible 7

Poster for Mission: Impossible Dead Reckoning Part One

The Guardian is out with an examination of how Mission: Impossible 8 has been pushed back a year to 2025. The story looks at how things went badly (in terms of box office)

Mission: Impossible Dead Reckoning Part One came out in July. There were high expectations. Producer/star Tom Cruise’s previous film, Top Gun: Maverick captured almost $1.5 billion at the global box office. Could that spill over to Cruise’s seventh M:I movie?

The answer: No. The blog observed earlier that this year’s Mission: Impossible installment failed to break out beyond the core M:I movie audience. It didn’t help that M:I 7 had a limited run at higher-priced IMAX theaters before Barbie and Oppenheimer came out.

Here are the numbers for the last two M:I entries, via Box Office Mojo:

Mission: Impossible Fallout (2018): $791.7 million (global), $220.2 million (U.S.)

Mission: Impossible Dead Reckoning Part One (2023): $567.5 million (global), $172.1 million (U.S.)

What’s more, the budgets exploded between the two M:I films. There were delays because of COVID-19 and other issues. According to Variety, Mission: Impossible 8 still has scenes to finish, a process affected by the SAG-AFTRA strike.

An excerpt from The Guardian:

And if the Mission: Impossible films are going to make money again, this can only mean one thing: they need to become a lot cheaper, and fast. There are ways to scrape away at the edges of the budget, of course. They could make the next one in fewer locations, and pare down the cast to its bare bones. But the big money-suck on the Mission: Impossible films are the stunts. I hate to say it, but these might need to be trimmed back. 

Mission: Impossible is hardly alone in dealing with expanding production budgets. No Time to Die’s budget got to the $300 million range (if not above), not including marketing costs. Walt Disney Co.’s Marvel has seen budgets for both films and TV shows expand. Warner Bros.’s DC Films also has seen increases in costs.

What happens now? Who knows? Every so often, studios are like alcoholics coming back from a bender. They vow to spend money more carefully in the future. Yet, that often doesn’t happen.