Mission: Impossible – The Final Reckoning made headlines for its franchise’s best box office start, creating some hope that it could break a major record for Tom Cruise’s movies. Even though Mission: Impossible – ᴅᴇᴀᴅ Reckoning underperformed financially, there were still high expectations for the eighth installment in this series. Tom Cruise’s return for The Final Reckoning was marketed as potentially the last Mission: Impossible movie. With new daring stunts incorporated throughout, it became a must-see theatrical release for many.

That sentiment was reflected in Mission: Impossible – The Final Reckoning‘s opening weekend box office. The film set a new franchise record over its Memorial Day opening weekend. It grossed $64 million over the three-day weekend, while the total grew to $79 million when factoring in Memorial Day itself. That was a franchise-best start for Mission: Impossible after nearly 30 years of movies. The sequel continued to do well over the first week of release. Now that its moving into its second week of release, The Final Reckoning has fallen off a record pace.

Mission: Impossible – The Final Reckoning Was On Pace To Be The Franchise’s Highest Grossing Movie Domestically

Mission: Impossible – Fallout Holds The Record

The record opening weekend for The Final Reckoning immediately put this film ahead of all other Mission: Impossible movies at the domestic box office over the same period of time. The result was giving Tom Cruise’s potentially last film as Ethan Hunt an opportunity to end the franchise on a high note financially. Mission: Impossible – Fallout holds the franchise record for the highest gross domestically, earning $220,159,104 over 84 days in theaters, via Box Office Mojo. This record gross came after the sixth film had a then-franchise-best opening weekend of $61 million.

The Final Reckoning began its theatrical run pacing ahead of Fallout after its opening weekend. That created a possibility that the movie could ultimately surpᴀss Fallout and become the highest-grossing Mission: Impossible movie domestically by the time its theatrical run concluded. The sixth film beat Mission: Impossible II‘s previous record high of $215,409,889. If The Final Reckoning had strong enough legs, its trajectory indicated a potential new franchise record domestically.

Having the holiday Monday to generate a larger-than-usual haul on a weekday helped The Final Reckoning a lot. The eighth film was at $79 million after four days compared to the sixth film sitting at $68 million after the same amount of time. The Final Reckoning maintained its lead over Fallout throughout the rest of the week, even though the daily totals were over $1 million better for the sixth film.

Mission: Impossible – The Final Reckoning Has Now Fallen Behind Fallout’s Pace

The 10th Day Of Release Was A Turning Point

As the table above illustrates, The Final Reckoning was quickly losing its lead over Fallout. And after the second Sunday of release, or the tenth day in theaters overall, the 2018 entry had reclaimed its lead over the most recent entry. Fallout had a domestic total of $124,811,186 after the end of its second weekend in theaters. The Final Reckoning finished its second weekend with a total of $122,536,128. That puts the sixth film roughly $2.3 million ahead of the eighth.

A key reason for this decline is The Final Reckoning having stiffer compeтιтion at the box office and having bigger drops as a result. Cruise’s new movie has remained steadily in second place behind Lilo & Sтιтch, and it still had to fend off Karate Kid: Legends‘ debut. Fallout remained in first place at the box office thanks to lackluster openings for Disney’s Christopher Robin and the comedy The Spy Who Dumped Me.

Whereas the sixth film only dropped 42.3% in its second weekend, the latest movie fell by 57.5%. That was the second-worst mark for the franchise, only behind Mission: Impossible – ᴅᴇᴀᴅ Reckoning‘s record 64.6% tumble. The Final Reckoning performed more in line with the franchise’s previous drops, but Fallout had one of the lowest declines for this series. That’s now put The Final Reckoning behind Fallout for the first time at the domestic box office.

Can The Final Reckoning Still Beat Fallout’s Domestic Box Office Record?

The Odds Aren’t In Its Favor

After squandering a lead that was as high as nearly $11 million previously, The Final Reckoning now falling behind Fallout puts its chances of breaking the franchise’s domestic record at risk. It does not help that the movie is nearly 3 hours long, limiting the number of showings that theaters can fit into a single day. The IMAX exclusivity has been a key selling point, but that will end soon. Tom Cruise has pulled out all the stops with the marketing campaign and global press tour already, too.

There’s not much left that could help bolster The Final Reckoning‘s performance as more summer blockbusters get released. Mission: Impossible – The Final Reckoning probably will not make up the ground it’s lost to Fallout domestically and will have to hope for one of the top two or three totals in franchise history instead. And with a worldwide total of $353 million, the movie is performing fairly well internationally.

Source: Box Office Mojo