Mission: Impossible – Dead Reckoning Part One (photo by Christian Black © 2023 Paramount Pictures)
July 16, 2023
Paramount Pictures’ seventh installment in the Mission: Impossible movie franchise, Dead Reckoning Part One, is projected to generate a record $80 million in North American ticket sales through the July 16 opening box office weekend, making Tom Cruise’s latest turn as special IMF agent Ethan Hunt the best yet financially.
The opening tally edged previous No. 1 Mission: Impossible II at $78.8 million in May 26-29, 2000. The traditional three-day opening box office record remains with Mission: Impossible – Fallout, which posted $61.2 million in July 27-29, 2018.
Dead Reckoning sold another $155 million in tickets across 70 markets, including Australia, Brazil, China, France, Germany, Italy, Korea, Mexico Spain, Taiwan, and the U.K., among others, for a total worldwide opening weekend estimate of $235 million, according to the studio. The movie had a reported $300 million production budget.
Enthusiasm for the movie got stronger as the weekend progressed, with two-thirds (65%) of moviegoers rating it excellent, and 90% rating it in the top two boxes (excellent or very good), and 69% definitely recommending it to their friends, according to Chris Aronson, president, domestic distribution at Paramount. Another 94% of surveyed moviegoers felt the movie met or exceeded their expectations.
“All ratings and recommendations are higher than the previous Mission movies, and higher than all our comps except Top Gun: Maverick,” Aronson said in a statement. “Audiences are embracing Dead Reckoning Part One as one of the best M:I’s ever, and will continue to play strongly around the world throughout the remainder of the summer.”
Paramount said the movie over-indexed in the West and Northeast regions of the U.S. and under-indexed in the Midwest, south central, and Southeast regions. Canada came in with a market share of 10.7% (8.9% overall).
Major markets that over-indexed include New York, San Francisco, Toronto, Washington D.C., Phoenix, Boston, Salt Lake City, Austin, Texas, Vancouver, while the only major markets that under-indexed included Philadelphia and San Antonio. Top performing theaters included New York, Los Angeles, Dallas, Toronto, Boston, Seattle, Washington D.C., Nashville, Tenn., and Chicago.
About 24% of the box office came from premium screens and 13% came from Imax screens rolling up to 37% of box office from all premium screen formats.
In addition to traditional movie marketing trailers, Paramount released five behind-the-scenes featurettes globally showcasing the stunts and scope of the film’s production efforts.