About ‘saving cinema’

One of the would-be saviors of cinema

The COVID-19 pandemic is long over. But movies — despite repeated comments that certain movies would save cinema — are still hurting.

I’m old enough to remember when some Bond fans said No Time to Die was “saving cinema.” Maybe in the U.K., but not in the U.S. The 25th James Bond film did fine in the U.S., almost $161 million. But it was only No. 007 in the U.S. for calendar 2021. Some protest, “What about COVID?” The first six also dealt with COVID. The No. 1 2021 movie was Spider-Man: No Way Home at almost $805 million (U.S.), $1.1 billion (global).

In 2022, Top Gun: Maverick, Tom Cruise’s sequel to a long-ago hit, was an enormous success, with almost $719 million in the U.S. and almost $1.5 billion worldwide. At a public event, director Steven Spielberg told Cruise, “You saved Hollywood’s ass.” There are various videos of this exchange, including THIS ONE.

In 2023, Cruise’s luck ran out. Mission: Impossible Dead Recocking Part One generated U.S. box office of $172.1 million and a worldwide take of $395.4 million. Nice, but below its previous installment, Mission: Impossible Fallout (more than $220 million, U.S., almost $792 million globally).

Whatever “secret sauce” Cruise had, it didn’t carry over into 2023. The next M:I installment (originally set for 2024) got delayed to 2025. The top global box office movies were Barbie and Oppenheimer.

In 2024? May is supposed to be the start of the “summer” movie season when big blockbusters reach theaters.

In the U.S., for the May 3-5 weekend, the No. 1 film was The Fall Guy at just under $28 million. For the May 10-12 weekend, the top film is Kingdom of the Planet of the Apes at an estimated $56.5 million.

Not small numbers, to be sure. But once upon a time (especially before the pandemic), figures came in at $100 million and above.

Despite the heralded saviors of cinema, it hasn’t been saved yet.

Movies are a mess and for many reasons. Netflix upended things with streaming. Studios, including Disney (which spent more than $70 billion to buy 20th Century Fox), Paramount and whoever owns Warner Bros. this week, have been chasing Netflix. Why rush out to a theater when you can see a movie soon on streaming? At least that’s something cinema is having to deal with.

Going back to the start of this article: When the James Bond franchise finally gets around to Bond 26, the entertainment world will be much different. MGM, one of the business partners of Eon Productions, is now owned by Amazon, which has a major streaming service.

About that Mission: Impossible title change

“Part One” we hardly knew ye

Last year’s Mission: Impossible Dead Reckoning Part One is about to come out on the Paramount + streaming service.

Except, according to Variety, it will be missing one thing — the “Part One” of the title. It’s now just Mission: Impossible Dead Reckoning. That means M:I 8, due out in 2025, delayed from this year, won’t be a Part Two.

Before the pandemic, the plan was to make M:I 7 and 8 back to back. The two films would then be shown in consecutive years. Mission: Impossible Dead Reckoning even said “End Part One” in the end titles.

The pandemic caused production delays and other disruptions. M:I 7’s budget also rose sharply.

Finally, the first movie came out in July 2023 and it was expected to be an enormous hit.

The film generated $567.5 million globally, according to Box Office Mojo. Quite respectable but below the $791.7 million for 2018’s Mission: Impossible — Fallout.

It was also far behind the almost $1.5 billion for star Tom Cruise’s 2022 movie Top Gun Maverick. That probably fueled anticipation for the 2023 Mission: Impossible movie’s box office.

There has been some fan speculation that putting “Part One” in the title of Mission: Impossible Dead Reckoning had an impact. Some theatergoers, under this scenario, skipped Part One and opted to skip it and wait for Part Two.

This blog last year raised the question of whether Dead Reckoning failed to reach out beyond the core M:I audience.

Whatever the case, the title tweak (and presumably a different title for the 2025 adventure) is an attempt to address the issue.

Happy New Year 2024 from The Spy Command

Our annual greeting

It’s the end of another year. Here’s hoping for a great 2024 for readers of The Spy Command.

Once upon a time, 2024 was going to be the eighth installment of the Tom Cruise Mission: Impossible film series. No such luck. That has been put off until 2025.

Could we find out more about the future of the James Bond film series? That remains to be seen.

Still, some spy entertainment is out there. Regardless, there’s a lot of be thankful for.

And, as Napoleon Solo reminds everyone, be sure to party responsibly this New Year’s Eve.

Happy New Year, everyone.

Mission: Impossible 8 gets delayed to 2025

Tom Cruise

UPDATE (7:45 p.m. New York Time): The Hollywood Reporter, in its story about the M:I 8 delay, says the movie may not be titled Mission: Impossible Dead Reckoning Part II. The trade publication doesn’t offer up an alternative title.

Mission: Impossible 8 (aka Mission: Impossible Dead Reckoning Part Two) has been postponed until summer 2025, Variety said.

The first part of the M:I epic came out earlier this year. The original plan was for M:I 7 and 8 be filmed back to back. But COVID-19 wrecked such production plants.

According to Variety, M:I 8 will now come out on May 23, 2025 from its previous release date of June 28, 2024. An early version of the Variety story said the 2024 release date was in March.

The most recent Tom Cruise M:I epic included the actor/producer executing a major motorcycle stunt (similar to GoldenEye but with Cruise doing it himself) and plot twists including artificial intelligence.

This year has seen a major Writer’s Guild strike (since settled) and a big actor’s strike (still underway). Studios have pushed back movie release dates to ensure a supply of films.

The Cruise M:I films are released by Paramount.

Mission: Impossible 7 fails to break out

Mission: Impossible Dead Reckoning Part One poster

Mission: Impossible Dead Reckoning Part One still has weeks for its theatrical run. But it appears the seventh installment of the Tom Cruise series will struggle to go beyond the core M:I audience.

As of Aug. 7, almost a month after its theatrical debut, its global box office was almost $494 million, with a U.S. box office of $151.2 million, according to Box Office Mojo.

That compares with $791.2 million globally and $220.2 million U.S. for 2018’s Mission: Impossible Fallout and $682.7 million globally and $195 million U.S. for 2015’s Mission: Impossible Rogue Nation.

The newest M:I movie scored a lot of positive reviews and high audience scores, according to the Rotten Tomatoes website.

Expectations had been higher, especially after Cruise’s Tom Gun Maverick in 2022 had a global box office of almost $1.5 billion.

There has been a lot of second-guessing about studio Paramount’s M:I release strategy. The new Mission: Impossible movie didn’t have a lot of time at premium-priced IMAX screens before Barbie and Oppenheimer arrived at theaters.

To be clear, $500 million (that the movie is approaching) is hardly a flop. There is still a market for Tom Cruise Mission: Impossible films. But COVID-related delays sent M:I 7’s budget toward $300 million, more than previous entries. If the movie turns a profit, it likely will be from post-theatrical revenue.

Over the weekend, Variety published an article questioning whether the M:I series needs to reel back its action sequences. Fans objected on social media, citing the release date issues.

Regardless, there isn’t time to recalibrate. M:I 8 is mostly filmed in anticipation of a 2024 release. As usual, we’ll see.

M:I 7 and the difficulty of saving cinema

Tom Cruise, star and producer of M:I 7

Mission: Impossible Dead Reckoning Part One had a mixed reception at the box office this weekend.

The seventh M:I movie generated an estimated $80 million since its official July 12 opening (there were showings as early as July 10), according to Exhibitor Relations Co. And its estimated total for the Friday-Sunday weekend was $56.2 million.

That put M:I 7 at No. 1 in the U.S. But the $80 million figure was lower than estimates going into the week. And the Friday-Sunday figure compared with $55.5 million for 2015’s Mission: Impossible Rogue Nation and $61.2 million for 2018’s Mission: Impossible Fallout.

The comparisons are difficult because of the way the new entry was released. Still, suffice it to say the new movie’s box office wasn’t much different than its predecessors despite higher ticket prices. Also, Mission: Impossible Dead Reckoning cost about $290 million to make and it may be difficult for the film to turn a profit during its theatrical release.

All of this is a roundabout way of saying cinema hasn’t been saved, certainly not yet.

Since at least the fall of 2021, fans of some movie series say their favorite films will “save cinema” after COVID-19. Still, cinema seems fairly precarious.

Recent expensive movies (The Flash, Indiana Jones and The Dial of Destiny) have come up short at the box office. Streaming, which was supposed to be a gold mine, hasn’t worked out that way for studios. And the Hollywood writer and actor unions are on strike, grinding productions to a halt.

To be sure, Mission: Impossible Dead Reckoning Part One has gotten many, many positive reviews. On the other hand, it will lose access to IMAX and other premium-priced movie screens as the Oppenheimer movie directed by Christopher Nolan comes out later this week.

Saving cinema will be a long, hard slog. No single film is going to do it.

M:I 7: Tom Cruise makes a ’60s Bond film

Minimal spoilers but pass over if you’re super adverse to spoilers.

Stylistically, Mission: Impossible Dead Reckoning Part One is like an updated 1960s James Bond movie, especially the more epic ones such as You Only Live Twice.

It has a similar structure: The seventh M:I film, directed and co-written by Christopher McQuarrie, is built around outrageous stunts punctuated by humor and some genuinely dramatic scenes. And, as usual, it borrows tropes from the original 1966-73 M:I television series.

Some M:I action sequences evoke Bond but go bigger.

A car chase in Rome tops a similar sequence in SPECTRE. And, of course, there is the much-hyped motorcycle jumping off a mountain, a la GoldenEye, except here star and producer Tom Cruise does the jump himself. Cruise performing his own stunts has emerged over the years as the big trademark of the M:I film series.

The plot has a “ripped from the headlines” feel, dealing with artificial intelligence here, similar to how Bond films evoked the space race in the 1960s as well as the end of the Cold War and media barons in the 1990s, and other issues in the 21st century.

Dead Reckoning isn’t perfect. Its 163-minute running time feels like it could have been tightened. But that’s an issue with a lot of movies these days.

There is a lot of fan debate on chatter about Bond vs. M:I. The Bond series these days likes to take extended breaks between entries. This film and 2018’s Mission: Impossible Fallout came out during such pauses for the Bond series. For now, Mission: Impossible is taking up the slack left by Bond. GRADE: A-Minus.

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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Mission: Impossible 7 releases new trailer

Mission: Impossible Dead Reckoning Part One, the seventh film in the Tom Cruise series, came out with a new trailer today.

The emphasis was on stunts and action scenes. There weren’t many plot revelations. Cruise’s Ethan Hunt is in the midst of a major mission and has enemies who want to do him in.

The new trailer repeats Cruise jumping off a mountain on a motorcycle, similar to GoldenEye. A stunt new to this trailer is a fight on top of a train, similar to Octopussy.

The movie, directed by Christopher McQuarrie, underwent COV19-related delays.

The movie is scheduled for release on July 12. Part Two of Mission: Impossible Dead Reckoning is scheduled for next year. Here is the version released over Twitter:

It's time to pick a side. Here is the new trailer for #MissionImpossible – Dead Reckoning Part One. pic.twitter.com/20VjrlxxP1

— Tom Cruise (@TomCruise) May 17, 2023

Bond 26’s delay spur other efforts

The James Bond film franchise is in the midst of another hiatus. It’s not known when the franchise will get going again. How is this affecting the spy genre?

Literary Bond gets a chance to shine: In 2022, Ian Fleming Publication came out with Double Or Nothing by Kim Sherwood, a modern-day tale featuring other 00-agents while James Bond is missing. The novel is just now coming to the U.S.

Also, Charlie Higson, who penned a series of “Young Bond’ novels is getting his chance to do an adult Bond novel with On His Majesty’s Secret Service, a story related to the coronation of King Charles III. That will be published in all forms in the U.K early next month. In the U.S., we’ll get an e-book version and an audiobook at the same time. A print version may be out shortly.

Other spies get a chance to shine: Amazon is coming out with a streaming series called Citadel featuring operatives of an independent spy agency. A movie titled Maude vs. Maude with Angelina Jolie and Halle Berry is in development, according to Deadline: Hollywood.

Jolie previously headlined the 2010 spy movie titled Salt. Berry had the lead female role in Die Another Day, the 2002 James Bond film. Richard Madden is one of the leads for Citadel. He has been part of speculation for playing 007 in Bond 26.

There are other spy-related projects, including Argylle (whose cast includes another would-be Bond, Henry Cavill).

Tom Cruise’s Mission: Impossible series gets a free run: Tom Cruise is coming out with a Mission: Impossible film(later this year, with a follow-up in 2024. This may be the finale for Cruise’s M:I movie series that began in 1996.

Bond fans note (with justification) that M:I stunts appear to be modeled after earlier stunt efforts in 007 films. But what makes the M:I series different is how Cruise seems all-in on the stunts.

We’ll see about all this. But nature abhors a vacuum. If the makers of the Bond franchise want a break, others clearly will take up the slack.

UPDATED: Reader Jack Lugo reminded me about this upcoming project, Ghosted, with Chris Evans and Ana De Armas. The latter was a memorable part of No Time to Die.