Mission: Impossible - Dead Reckoningdirector Christopher McQuarrie shares his honest thoughts about the film’s poor box office performance and won’t accept any excuses. Hitting theaters in summer 2023, the seventh installment in theMission: Impossiblefranchise sees Tom Cruise back as Ethan Hunt, this time facing off against an evil AI known as the Entity and its human emissary, Gabriel (Esai Morales). ThoughMission: Impossible – Dead Reckoningreviewswere glowing from critics, the film, which carried a COVID-inflated estimated budget of $291 million, was a commercial disappointment, grossing $571 million worldwide.
During a recent interview withEmpire, McQuarrie gets candid aboutMission: Impossible – Dead Reckoningnot meeting its box office expectations. The director isn’t interested in making any excuses, saying that he and Cruise know that parts of the movie were divisive for audiences. From the sounds of things, he and Cruise are using this to make the upcomingMission: Impossible – The Final Reckoningeven better. Check out McQuarrie’s comment below:
“It didn’t work for everybody. Elements of the film didn’t work for everybody. I feel it, I hear it, and I respect it. I don’t look at those people and go, ‘They didn’t get it.’ That’s a fcking cop-out. Tom and I looked at that, as we look at every movie. If the movie made $600 million or six dollars, I would say it could have been better. For everybody that had a great time, we honoured our commitment. For everybody that didn’t, we don’t stop. We do not fcking stop.”
Mission: Impossible – Falloutremains the highest-grossing installment in the franchise with a worldwide total of $791 million.
What McQuarrie’s Comments Mean For Mission: Impossible 7
Other Factors Also Affected The Film’s Box Office Performance
OnRotten Tomatoes,Mission: Impossible – Dead Reckoninghas a 96% score from critics. Sometimes, what works for critics doesn’t work for general audiences, but the audience score for the movie is also an impressive 94%. Now, Rotten Tomatoes scores certainly don’t tell the whole story, but,generally speaking,Dead Reckoningseems to have been well-received, and there likely wasn’t much negative word-of-mouth working against it.
Mission: Impossible 7’s Poor Box Office Proves The Secret Truth Of Tom Cruise’s Career
Mission: Impossible – Dead Reckoning was a comparative disappointment at the box office, reflecting a larger trend in Tom Cruise’s career.
Instead,Dead Reckoningwas a victim of its theatrical window. The seventhMission: Impossiblemoviehit theaters only about a week before the dual release ofOppenheimerandBarbie, and the “Barbenheimer” phenomenon largely took over movie theaters for months. Importantly,the release of Christopher Nolan’sOppenheimermeant thatDead Reckoninglost its IMAX screens after only a week, and PLF (premium large format) showings can make up a considerable portion of the box office on these types of blockbusters.
96%
94%
81/100
7.9/10
$571M
The Final Reckoning Could Have More Success
TheupcomingMission: Impossible – The Final Reckoningalready looks to be on much surer footing purely because it won’t have any major competition when it releases in May, and it will hold onto its IMAX screens for much longer. Still, it sounds likeDead Reckoning’s underperformance resulted in a bit of a re-think from McQuarrie and Cruise about this next movie, and it’s possible that some elements of the previous film won’t be included in the next one.
One major factor working againstThe Final Reckoningis its reported production budget of $400 million, though it’s possible some of this total is shared withDead Reckoning.
The AI villain, for example, which was somewhat divisive inDead Reckoning, could end up being downplayed inThe Final Reckoningin favor of a more human threat. WhileMission: Impossible – Dead Reckoning’s quality doesn’t seem to have been a major factor in its underwhelming box office, it’s clear that McQuarrie and Cruise aren’t letting it deter them, and they’re still dead set on providing the most entertaining experience possible for audiences.
