To say the last month at the box office has been throwing up significantly more misses than hits is a damning indictment on the current state of cinema, with Spider-Man: Across the Spider-Verse the only thing that could genuinely be described as a runaway freight train of success.
Transformers: Rise of the Beasts is doing okay having passed $350 million globally, but both The Flash and Indiana Jones and the Dial of Destiny are in danger of going down in the history books as a pair of the biggest bombs in history, while Disney’s Elemental scored one of Pixar’s worst-ever opening weekends, and The Little Mermaid is struggling internationally.
Thankfully, though, Tom Cruise is lurking just over the horizon, and he’s ready to save cinema again. Nobody loves movies like he does, and Mission: Impossible – Dead Reckoning is arriving in the same July slot that saw Top Gun: Maverick race towards $1.5 billion at the box office and find the star and producer lavished in praise as the savior of the industry, with Steven Spielberg one of the many names to anoint such a lofty accolade on the longtime Ethan Hunt.
Dead Reckoning is already tracking for a franchise-high opening in the $90 million range, and if it can survive the double-pronged assault from Barbie and Oppenheimer less than two weeks later, it’s easily capable of smashing the previous record haul of $792 million set by Fallout.
Whenever cinema finds itself in a pinch, don’t fret; Tom Cruise is always ready, willing, and able to ride to the rescue.