‘Mission: Impossible — Dead Reckoning’ Is Off to a Great Start at the Global Box Office

While things are looking a little touch-and-go for it at the domestic box office currently, Paramount’s Mission: Impossible — Dead Reckoning Part One is still on track to gross around $240 million in its extended five-day debut worldwide. The seventh installment in the long-running action franchise opened mid-week in theaters across the world, as it aims to make the most of the 10 days or so it has before Barbie and Oppenheimer land next week.

But the movie would hope to continue performing well into the summer, unlike most front-loaded blockbusters these days. With $40 million so far at the domestic box office, and another $82 million from overseas markets, Dead Reckoning Part One has grossed $122 million worldwide by Friday. The movie was projected to gross around $250 million in its global debut, a number that has now been slightly lowered after taking its domestic performance into account. Dead Reckoning Part One is eyeing a $78 million stateside debut across five days, around $12 million below expectations.

But the Mission: Impossible franchise has always skewed older, and older skewing movies typically don’t have massive openings. Exit polls prove that the dominant demographic for Dead Reckoning Part One remains men over the age of 25 (around 46%). Both in terms of demographic and budget, the movie’s closest comp is Indiana Jones and the Dial of Destiny, which it is out-performing critically and commercially. While the fifth Indiana Jones movie still hasn’t passed the $300 million mark worldwide after two full weeks of release, Dead Reckoning Part One should cross this milestone heading into its second weekend.

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After that, it’s going to be word-of-mouth that drives business. And fortunately for the film, audiences seem to be digging it. Expectations for Dead Reckoning Part One were abnormally high, seeing as it’s coming after the one-two punch of Mission: Impossible — Fallout and Top Gun: Maverick that star Tom Cruise delivered back-to-back in recent years. Both blockbusters contributed significantly to cementing Cruise’s stature as the world’s foremost movie star. Reviews for Dead Reckoning Part One have been enthusiastic, with the film currently sitting at a “fresh” 96% score on review aggregator Rotten Tomatoes, and with a solid A CinemaScore from opening day audiences.

Dead Reckoning Part One Hopes to Keep Performing Through the Summer

Fallout remains the franchise’s top grossing entry, with nearly $800 million in worldwide box office receipts. Maverick, on the other hand, became the biggest hit of Cruise’s career, with nearly $1.5 billion worldwide last year. Dead Reckoning Part One cost more than both those movies, thanks to pandemic-related issues which pushed the budget to almost $300 million. The movie will rely heavily on overseas numbers in the coming weeks. Encouragingly, it delivered number one debuts in the U.K., India, France, Korea, Mexico, Germany, Brazil, and other key markets. In China, it debuted at number three, with over $7 million. Dead Reckoning Part One is currently playing in 70 markets worldwide, with the key market of Japan yet to open.

Directed by Christopher McQuarrie, the movie also stars Ving Rhames, Simon Pegg, Rebecca Ferguson, Hayley Atwell, Esai Morales, Vanessa Kirby, Shea Whigham, Henry Czerny and Pom Klementieff. You can watch our interview with McQuarrie here, and stay tuned to Collider for more updates.