'Mission: Impossible - Fallout' Debuts With Franchise Best, $61.5M Opening
by Brad Brevet

July 29, 2018

This weekend saw Paramount's Mission: Impossible - Fallout top the weekend box office with the franchise's largest three-day opening as well as star Tom Cruise's second largest opening of his career. Meanwhile, Warner Bros.'s animated feature Teen Titans Go! To the Movies struggled and fell short of expectations. Overall, the weekend was up ~6% compared to last weekend and up ~8% compared to the same weekend last year.

With an estimated $61.5 million, Paramount's Mission: Impossible - Fallout fell a bit shy of Mojo's pre-weekend expectations, but still managed to deliver the franchise's largest three-day opening, topping the $57.8 million opening for Mission: Impossible II back in 2000. The opening also represents the second largest debut for Tom Cruise after the $64.8 million debut for War of the Worlds in 2005 and for Paramount this is the studio's largest opening since 2014's Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles ($65.5m). Given the film's position as the last major blockbuster of summer 2018 and the positive reaction from both audiences and critics, Fallout should exhibit strong legs looking ahead.

Fallout not only carried the best reviews of the franchise (97% on RottenTomatoes and an 86 on Metacritic), but opening day audiences gave the film a franchise-best "A" CinemaScore. The film played to an audience that was 55% male, which is much more balanced when compared to the 62% for Mission: Impossible - Rogue Nation. Speaking of which, after opening with $55.5 million, and receiving an "A-" CinemaScore in 2015, Rogue Nation went on to deliver $195 million at the domestic box office. A similar performance for Fallout would put the film's domestic run over $215 million.

GET MORE: Compare the performances for all six Mission: Impossible films here!

Internationally, the last two Mission films delivered nearly $700 million globally and Fallout is already looking to top those figures after debuting in 36 markets this weekend and delivering an estimated $92 million. Paramount reports the performance as being 19% ahead of Rogue Nation making it the biggest opening for the franchise.

Highlights include a $24.6 million opening in South Korea, 22% above Rogue Nation, followed by the UK ($9m), India ($7m), Indonesia ($5.5m), Taiwan ($5.4m), Mexico ($4.8m), Russia ($4m), Brazil ($3.8m), United Arab Emirates ($3m), Hong Kong ($2.8m), Malaysia ($2.6m), Philippines ($2.2m), Singapore ($1.8m), Spain ($1.7m), Vietnam ($1.2m) and Colombia ($1m). The film's overseas opening represented approximately 40% of the international marketplace with openings in France, Australia, Germany and Japan planned for this coming weekend followed by Italy on August 29 and China on August 31.

Universal's Mamma Mia! Here We Go Again dropped a hefty 57%, resulting in a second weekend, estimated at $15 million, pushing the film's domestic cume over $70 million. It will be interesting to see where the film goes from here as this is a larger drop than anticipated, especially given the lack of competition among the film's target demographic.

Sony's The Equalizer 2 topped the box office last weekend, but, as expected, dropped heavily in its second weekend as it lost a large segment of its audience to the release of Mission: Impossible. That said, like Mamma Mia!, the dip was larger than expected, dropping 61% for a second weekend totaling an estimated $14 million for a domestic cume coming up just shy of $65 million after ten days in release. The first film dropped just 45% in its second weekend despite both Gone Girl and Annabelle opening over its second weekend.

Sony also landed in second with Hotel Transylvania 3: Summer Vacation, which brought in an estimated $12.3 million for a domestic cume just shy of $120 million as it begins its third week in release.

Rounding out the top five is Warner Bros.'s animated feature Teen Titans Go! To the Movies, which was expected to finish in the mid-teens, but could only manage $10.5 million over its debut weekend. The DC Comics adaptation, which is based on the television series "Teen Titans Go!", carries a reported budget of just $10 million, which softens the film's disappointing performance a little, especially when you compare it to a film such as Sherlock Gnomes, which debuted with just $10.6 million earlier this year, but carried a budget nearly six times the size of Teen Titans.

Internationally, Teen Titans opened in just eight smaller markets, bringing in an estimated $1 million. The largest market was the film's opening in Argentina, where it brought in $464,000. Looking ahead, the film will debut in the UK on August 3 followed by releases in Germany (Aug 16), Mexico (Aug 24), Brazil (Aug 30), Spain (Aug 31), France (Sep 5) and Italy (Sep 6).