A pre-SPECTRE look at The Year of the Spy’s box office

Mission: Impossible Rogue Nation’s teaser poster

At the worldwide box office, The Year of The Spy has had one breakaway hit so far before the movie that’s a virtual lock to be the No. 1 spy film. That, of course, would be SPECTRE, the 24th James Bond film due out this fall.

The breakaway hit to date is Mission: Impossible Rogue Nation, with an estimated worldwide box office of $656 million through Sept. 20, according to the BOX OFFICE MOJO WEBSITE.

Parmount originally scheduled the M:I film for Dec. 25, just a week after the new Star Wars movie. Paramount, the studio that controls the M:I franchise, changed the release date to July 31. The box office results have proven a smart move for executives at Paramount.

The movie fifth M:I film with Tom Cruise has been helped by ticket sales in China that have exceeded $100 million, ACCORDING TO FORBES.COM.

Another winner was Kingsman: The Secret Service, with a worldwide box office EXCEEDING $410 MILLION, including almost $282 million outside the United States. It was based on a comic book by Mark Millar and Dave Gibbons which wasn’t exactly well known among the general public.

Other spy entries include Taken 3, the last of a three-film series, at $325.8 million worldwide  and the Melissa McCarthy comedy Spy at $236.2 million.

Lagging the others was director Guy Ritchie’s version of The Man From U.N.C.L.E., released on Aug. 14 in the U.S., with an estimated worldwide box office of $99.5 million as of Sept. 20.

That’s not enough to recover the estimated $75 million production budget plus additional marketing expenses, which included, among other things, a May press junket in Rome. U.N.C.L.E. was the biggest loser from Paramount’s release date change for Mission: Impossible Rogue Agent.

SPECTRE will be the big finale for The Year of The Spy. The 007 film is coming off 2012’s Skyfall, the first Bond film to cross the $1 billion box office mark on an unadjusted basis. SPECTRE will not only be the most costly 007 film, it will be one of the most expensive movies of all time, with a production budget of $300 million or more.

U.N.C.L.E. expected to have lowest spy opening of 2015

Logo for The Man From U.N.C.L.E. movie

The Man From U.N.C.L.E. movie is expected to have the lowest U.S. opening weekend of 2015 spy movies, according to A STORY BY THE WRAP ENTERTAINMENT NEWS WEBSITE.

The Wrap doesn’t couch its story exactly that way. Instead, the website’s story focuses on the box office prospects of Straight Outta Compton. Here’s an excerpt:

But it’s clear that the fan base for N.WA. — an acronym for Niggaz Wit Attitudes — is mobilized, and analysts say that alone will drive a box office debut north of $30 million, enough to dethrone Tom Cruise’s “Mission: Impossible – Rogue Nation,” when Universal Pictures rolls it out in 2,751 theaters on Friday. The Guy Ritchie-directed “The Man From U.N.C.L.E.,” an action film starring “Superman” star Henry Cavill and Armie Hammer based on the 1970s TV show, is projected debut in the high-teen millions.

Translation: The U.N.C.L.E. movie is projected to have an opening weekend under $20 million, while Straight Outta Compton will exceed $30 million. For the record, the U.N.C.L.E. television series ran 1964-68, but that doesn’t change how the movie version isn’t seen as doing well at the box office.

Mission: Impossible Rogue Nation had an opening weekend of $55.5 million (the initial estimate was $56 million).

Taken 3’s opening weekend was $39.2 million, Kingsman: The Secret Service’s was $36.2 million and the comedy Spy’s was $29.1 million.

The No. 1 spy movie all along has been projected to be SPECTRE, the 24th James Bond film. SPECTRE is coming off Skyfall, which had worldwide box office exceeding $1 billion in 2012.

If the projections for U.N.C.L.E. are correct, it will trail last weekend’s Fantastic Four movie, widely seen as a flop with $25.7 million.

Fantastic Four was a more expensive movie than U.N.C.L.E. and its $75 million production budget. But that’s a subtle fact that tends to get lost in stories about the weekend box office.

M:I Rogue Nation has biggest spy opening of 2015 so far

Mission: Impossible Rogue Nation’s teaser poster

Mission: Impossible Rogue Nation had the biggest U.S. opening weekend so far in “The Year of the Spy,” according to box office estimates released Sunday, VARIETY.COM REPORTED.

The fifth movie in the M:I film series generated estimated box office of $56 million, making it the top movie at the box office this weekend, Variety.com said. The final figures will be reported Monday.

M:I Rogue Nation’s performance was substantially better than early “tracking numbers” two weeks ago of a $40 million opening.

The movie also came in considerably higher than other spy films released earlier this year: Taken 3’s $39.2 million, Kingsman: The Secret Service’s $36.2 million and Spy’s $29.1 million.

Producer-star Tom Cruise made his first M:I movie 19 years ago. the previous entry in the series, Mission: Impossible Ghost Protocol, was released in 2011.

The Deadline: Hollywood website WROTE FRIDAY that M:I Rogue Nation had benefited from good reviews. According to the ROTTEN TOMATOES website, the film had a “fresh” rating of  93 percent for reviews and a 92 percent audience rating.

Next up for the Year of the Spy is The Man From U.N.C.L.E. on Aug. 14, which will be challenged to come close to M:I Rogue Nation’s opening. SPECTRE, the 24th James Bond film that’s due out this fall, is all but certain to have No. 1 spy opening.

 

Early forecast for M:I Rogue Nation: $40M opening weekend

Mission: Impossible Rogue Nation’s teaser poster

Two weeks ahead of its July 31 debut, the early forecast for Mission: Impossible Rogue Nation is for opening weekend box office of $40 million in the U.S., according to A VARIETY STORY by Brent Lang.

“That’s less than the first three “Mission: Impossible” movies did in their initial weekends, though it does beat the $29.8 million debut that “Mission: Impossible — Ghost Protocol” generated in its wide release debut,” Lang wrote.

Ghost Protocol, released in 2011, was the most recent in the series with star-producer Tom Cruise and it “was remarkably resilient, not dropping by more than 50% weekend to weekend until six weeks after it hit theaters. It ended its run with nearly $210 million at the Stateside box office,” Lang wrote.

A $40 million opening weekend would be a bit better than other spy and spy-related movies earlier this year: Taken 3’s $39.2 million, Kingsman: The Secret Service’s $36.2 million and Spy’s $29.1 million.

The forecasts, also known as “tracking,” play a role in whether a movie is seen as financially successful. Actual box office receipts exceeding the forecasts usually cause a movie to be seen as a success. Falling short often generates bad publicity in the entertainment media.

The new M:I film has the Impossible Missions Force opposing “the Syndicate,” a mysterious group and the “Rogue Nation” of the title. The movie features Cruise, once again, doing a signature stunt, this time hanging on the side of an airplane.

UPDATE: Year of the Spy

Taken 3 poster

Last December, we dubbed 2015 as the “Year of the Spy.” Here’s a quick update how things are going after five months.

Taken 3: Intended as the final of a trilogy with Liam Neeson as an ex-spy, Taken 3 got a lot of bad reviews. It had a $39.2 million opening weekend, according to BOX OFFICE MOJO. That was OK, but about $10 million less than Taken 2 in 2012.

As of June 1, Taken 3 had worldwide box office of $325.8 million, down from Taken 2’s $376.1 million. It particularly tailed off in the United States, with $89.3 million, compared with Taken 2’s $139.9 million. Perhaps it really “ends here,” as the movie’s advertising slogan said.

Kingsman: The Secret Service: Matthew Vaughn’s version of the Mark Millar-Dave Gibbons comic book generated worldwide box office of more than $400 million, including more than $275 million outside the United States. The movie had a reported $81 million budget.

THE WRAP ENTERTAINMENT NEWS WEBSITE reported in late April that was enough to start developing a sequel.

Spy: Not on our original preview list, the Melissa McCarthy comedy — where an analyst gets a chance to be an undercover agent — debuts Friday, June 5. As of June 1, PROBOXOFFICE.COM is projecting a $43 million opening weekend in the U.S.

Mission: Impossible Rogue Nation: Since December, the fifth Tom Cruise Mission: Impossible movie got a title and, more importantly, a new release date. Paramount moved up the M:I adventure to July 31 from Dec. 25.

If the tighter post-production schedule concerned anyone associated with the film, they’ve kept it to themselves. A teaser trailer has been out since March.

The Man From U.N.C.L.E.: Warner Bros. is beginning to ramp up publicity for Guy Ritchie’s much-different take on the 1964-68 television series. A teaser trailer debuted in February and a second trailer was at some U.S. theaters last weekend. Warners also had a big publicity event for the film in Rome last month. The movie comes out Aug. 14, just two weeks after Mission: Impossible.

SPECTRE teaser poster

SPECTRE: The 24th James Bond film still is filming, with principal photography to conclude later this month. There have been some bursts of publicity (in Rome and Mexico City during filming there).

The movie, with a budget exceeding $300 million, is on pace to be one of the most expensive of all time — costing about $50 million more than Avengers: Age of Ultron. If anybody’s actually worried about those figures (which became public because of hacking of documents at Sony Pictures last year), they’re keeping mum.

Despite the outlay, the parties involved will probably do OK, but the bigger budget could eat into profits. Then again, that’s a problem for Metro-Goldwyn-Mayer and Sony, not movie goers, who’ll line up to see the movie in early November.