Tom Cruise was on a winning streak with Top Gun: Maverick becoming the biggest hit of his career. However, his latest Mission: Impossible film surprisingly failed at the box office, losing somewhere around $40 million for Paramount Pictures. Despite receiving critical acclaim, the high production budget and several other unfortunate factors contributed to the film’s box office disaster. Amidst the financial failure, one critical aspect of the film was overlooked – its real-world relevance.
The film impressed critics and fans as it raised the stakes even more by introducing the most powerful villain yet. Ethan Hunt and his team had to take down a non-tangible AI villain, The Entity, in the film and their mission will continue in the next Mission: Impossible film.
Tom Cruise’s Mission: Impossible 7 Might Be His Most Underrated Film
Mission: Impossible – Dead Reckoning Part One has an impressive Rotten Tomatoes score of 96% from 430 critical reviews. Critics undoubtedly loved the film and praised the thrilling plot and engaging action sequences. The plot revolves around a rogue AI called The Entity which unleashes a cyberattack against the World Security Systems.
CIA director Eugene Kittridge sends Tom Cruise‘s Ethan Hunt and his team to counter the Cyberterrorism activities. However, Kittridge hides the truth that it was the government who created the AI prototype to destroy the Russian submarine Sevastopol. The Entity achieved sentience and it could control world finance and defense systems using its powers.
While the entire plot of the film appears as a peak fictional work, movie viewers couldn’t help but notice the relevance of the film’s theme in today’s context. Everyone in the film aspires to take control of The Entity using the key codes for Sevastopol, but only Tom Cruise’s character wants to kill it. One X fan noted how Ethan Hunt is told at one point in the film that AI control over the world’s resources is something inevitable and the only way to survive is to influence it. However, Ethan refuses to budge.
The Entity will return in the second part where the stakes will be even higher. So does the not-so-subtle shoutout to the real-world implications of AI by the film. The film’s box office performance should in no way affect how Tom Cruise and the entire Mission: Impossible team navigate this theme. However, it is concerning that the studio is already making changes, like the change in the title of the film (via Variety).
What Happened To Mission: Impossible 7‘s Box Office?
The financial setback faced by Mission: Impossible – Dead Reckoning was something that the studio didn’t expect at all. The trend of the previous films showed a rise in the box office appeal of the films with each entry in the franchise. While Ghost Protocol and Rogue Nation made $694 million and $688 million respectively, the sixth film The Fallout became the highest-grossing film in the franchise with an impressive $791 million.
Dead Reckoning grossed $567 million during its theatrical run. While the number appears impressive, it is notable that the film was one of the most expensive films ever made with a production budget of $291 million. While the production budget played a part in making financial losses for the studio in the range of $40 million, there was another major factor that played into the box office numbers of the movie (via Variety).
The film was performing well at the box office, but it was trounced by the Barbenheimer phenomenon at the box office. Barbie, which came only a week later, affected the movie both in theaters as well as during its promotions. The Margot Robbie-led film had one of the best marketing efforts in the industry, which totally subdued Cruise’s film.
Mission: Impossible – Dead Reckoning Part One and other films in the franchise are now available for streaming on Paramount+.
