10 Reasons Mission: Impossible 8's Box Office Is The Franchise's Lowest In 19 Years

Mission: Impossible – The Final Reckoning is underperforming at the box office for a variety of possible reasons. The 2025 action film, which stars Tom Cruise as superspy Ethan Hunt alongside an ensemble cast that includes Simon Pegg, Hayley Atwell, Ving Rhames, Pom Klementieff, Esai Morales, Nick Offerman, Hannah Waddingham, Henry Czerny, and Angela Bᴀssett, is the eighth installment in the franchise, which is inspired by the 1966 espionage series of the same name. The movie’s release started off on a high note, with a $64 million 3-day debut that saw it earn the highest-grossing opening weekend of the entire franchise.

However, the Mission: Impossible – The Final Reckoning box office began to slow down after a 57.5% sophomore weekend drop. Currently, it has earned just over $450 million worldwide as its fourth weekend kicks off. While that total makes it the fourth highest-grossing movie of 2025 so far, it is the second lowest-grossing installment in the franchise, behind 2006’s Mission: Impossible III ($399.4 million). It remains to be seen how high it can climb by the end of its run, but it is likely to end far from the top of the chart, which is occupied by 2018’s Fallout ($786.6 million).

1

Mission: Impossible – The Final Reckoning’s Reviews Were Good, But Not Great

It’s Ranked In The Bottom Half Of The Franchise

While critics’ Mission: Impossible – The Final Reckoning reviews were largely positive, earning it a Certified Fresh score of 80% on Rotten Tomatoes, the new movie still pales in comparison to many of its predecessors. In fact, it has only the fifth-best score of the eight-film franchise, behind 2011’s Ghost Protocol (94%), 2015’s Rogue Nation (94%), 2023’s ᴅᴇᴀᴅ Reckoning Part One (96%), and Fallout (98%). The only installments with worse reviews are the original trilogy (65%, 57%, and 73% respectively), which are also the three lowest-grossing installments other than The Final Reckoning. This could potentially reflect its ultimate box office fate.

2

Mission: Impossible – The Final Reckoning’s Word Of Mouth Was Similarly Lacking

Audiences Rated ᴅᴇᴀᴅ Reckoning Better Than Its Follow-Up

3

Mission: Impossible 8’s Big Stunts Were Incredible, But Didn’t Have Strong Enough Hooks

Previous Installments May Have Had More Intriguing Stunts For General Audiences

Tom Cruise as Ethan Hunt holding a flashlight in the Sevastopol submarine in Mission Impossible The Final Reckoning

Another issue that may have prevented the new movie from building up steam ahead of its release is the fact that the impressive Mission: Impossible – The Final Reckoning stunts, which include Tom Cruise hanging off of a midair biplane and navigating a sunken submarine, can’t quite compare to previous installments. The former likely suffered from being too similar to Rogue Nation‘s stunt where Cruise was attached to the outside of a plane while it took off, while the latter lacks an easily digestible hook that might make it intriguing, unlike previous stunts such as Cruise rappelling down the Burj Khalifa.

4

Mission: Impossible – The Final Reckoning’s Runtime Might’ve Put People Off

It’s Nearly Three Hours Long

Another issue that Mission: Impossible – The Final Reckoning faced is the fact that its runtime is nearly three hours long. At roughly 170 minutes, or 2 hours and 50 minutes, it is the longest installment of the entire franchise. It beats ᴅᴇᴀᴅ Reckoning Part One‘s 163-minute runtime by seven minutes, and that movie had already beat the next-longest installment, the 147-minute Fallout, by 16 minutes. This may have prevented some audience members who were already on the fence, either based on the Rotten Tomatoes score or other reasons, from wanting to commit so much of their time to the movie.

5

Mission: Impossible – The Final Reckoning’s Runtime Also Unnecessarily Limited Its Theatrical Opportunities

Shorter Movies Get More Showtimes

Haley Atwell looking out the window in Mission Impossible The Final Reckoning — Custom Image by Yailin Chacon

Another issue facing Mission: Impossible 8 is that its runtime meant that individual screens could play it fewer times per day, resulting in fewer tickets being sold. Even if it had played on just a single screen in a given theater, if it had been 90 minutes long, it would have had almost two times the screenings, doubling the potential audience. While the movie’s IMAX screenings had higher ticket prices and thus could have been lucrative enough to make up for what might have been lost due to the runtime, the per-theater screenings issue does persist no matter the format.

6

Mission: Impossible – The Final Reckoning Had Major Compeтιтion During Its Opening Weekend

It Debuted Over Memorial Day 2025

Tom Cruise as Ethan Hunt has a serious look in Mission Impossible The Final Reckoning

Another big issue facing Mission: Impossible – The Final Reckoning was the compeтιтion during its Memorial Day weekend debut. Although some summer 2025 movies such as Karate Kid: Legends and From the World of John Wick: Ballerina were the only tentpole releases on their respective weekends, this was not the case for Mission: Impossible. It opened opposite Disney’s live-action Lilo & Sтιтch remake, which broke the record for the highest-grossing Memorial Day weekend debut of all time, beating Top Gun: Maverick and taking all the attention over the weekend in spite of the fact that both movies were courting different demographics.

7

Mission: Impossible 8 Faced Franchise Fatigue

There Have Been Eight Installments Over 29 Years

Tom Cruise as Ethan Hunt looking shocked in a plane in Mission Impossible The Final Reckoning

Another Final Reckoning issue could be franchise fatigue. There have been eight Mission: Impossible movies since 1996, and the two-year gap between ᴅᴇᴀᴅ Reckoning Part One and the new installment is the shortest hiatus that the franchise has ever had. While this is a less steady clip than some franchises, fatigue settles in differently for every film series. It is possible that coming out so close to ᴅᴇᴀᴅ Reckoning could have prevented the movie from feeling as fresh as it might have if it had had a longer hiatus, such as the six years between the second and third installments.

8

Mission: Impossible – The Final Reckoning Was Too Closely Linked To ᴅᴇᴀᴅ Reckoning Part One

The Previous Installment Also Underperformed

Tom Cruise as Ethan Hunt shouting in Mission Impossible ᴅᴇᴀᴅ Reckoning

A factor that likely increased the franchise fatigue is the fact that The Final Reckoning is a direct follow-up to ᴅᴇᴀᴅ Reckoning Part One, which underperformed, grossing $571.1 million against a reported $291 million budget and becoming the lowest-grossing installment since 2006 at the time. The disappointing Mission: Impossible – ᴅᴇᴀᴅ Reckoning Part One box office resulted in Part Two getting reтιтled, but the two movies are still directly linked, both by the word “reckoning” in the тιтle and in terms of their storylines. Thus, the movie was still marred by some of the same issues that plagued its immediate predecessor.

9

Top Gun: Maverick Stole Mission: Impossible’s Thunder

The Billion-Dollar Legacy Sequel Debuted In 2022

Tom Cruise smiling while driving a motorcycle in Top Gun Maverick

An issue that both ᴅᴇᴀᴅ Reckoning Part One and The Final Reckoning had to face is that they were preceded by the 2022 Tom Cruise legacy sequel Top Gun: Maverick, which became a smash hit when it grossed $1.496 billion against a reported budget of $177 million. The movie, which was still an IP тιтle but felt fresher because it came more than 30 years after the original installment, proved that Tom Cruise could be a viable lead in other franchises with even more high-octane premises, which may have taken some of the shine off of the Mission: Impossible movies.

10

Action Movies Have Been Underperforming In 2025

All 3 Action тιтles In The Top 10 Are Disappointments

Mission: Impossible – The Final Reckoning has also arrived during a year that has been rough on the action genre. All three of the 2025 action movies in the year’s current worldwide box office Top 10 (which are Captain America: Brave New World, The Final Reckoning, and Thunderbolts*) have underperformed compared to their budgets. This issue spreads even further, as the new Jason Statham movie A Working Man couldn’t compete with his previous David Ayer collaboration The Beekeeper, Rami Malek’s revenge movie The Amateur had a lukewarm performance, and Den of Thieves 2: Pantera grossed considerably less than the original installment.

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