It has been remarked from time to time that DC and Marvel Comics' casts of heroes differ in, among so much else, their propensity for cape-wearing.
DC's most iconic superheroes wear capes--both Superman and Batman certainly doing so. Wonder Woman is less identified with them, but she is far from unknown to wear a cape herself--which means the Justice League's "Big Three" are covered here. And of course one has an easy time coming up with other examples--most obviously figures derivative of or associated with the Big Three, like Superman's fellow arrival from planet Krypton Supergirl (and Powergirl), and Batman's sidekick Robin (and Batgirl and Batwoman), but also the Martian Manhunter (making for at least three routine and four sometime cape-wearers among the seven founders of the Justice League), and Robin's fellow Teen Titan, Raven.1
By contrast capes are less common in the Marvel universe. Among the X-Men, for example, only Storm is apt to be seen wearing one--a single member of the principals on the X-Men team, as against all those Justice League members, while it says something that one could miss the fact given the split design of her particular cape in the version of her appearance most are probably familiar with. (I actually misremembered the cape as a wingsuit until I checked up on the matter for this item.) Thor and Dr. Strange both wear capes, but in fairness they are relatively minor Marvel figures--certainly next to Spider-Man, or the Hulk, or Captain America, or Iron Man, or the members of the Fantastic Four, or Wolverine and the other X-Men, none of whom make a habit of cape-wearing.2 (Indeed, a glance at one recent list of the Marvel cape-wearers confirms this--only the really hardcore fan of superhero comics likely to have even heard of most of those really likely to be seen in a cape, like Moon Knight.)
In fact the more prominent Marvel cape-wearers tend to be villains--like Dr. Doom and Magneto.
Why is that?
My guess is that Marvel in the classic, Silver Age period in which it churned out the superheroes we know it for inclined to more grounded figures--to whom the flamboyant impression made by a cape is less suited. At the same time, probing the possibilities of the superhero form in that way that tends to go with the second, "middle," generation of a genre's life cycle, they hit upon a lot of characters whose wearing a cape would make no sense whatsoever--as with wheelchair-using Charles Xavier, the Hulk-transforming Bruce Banner, or your friendly neighborhood Spider-Man swinging along from webs he shoots out of devices on his wrists (that was how it originally went if you remember those old numbers), while this was even more the case with those cash-in-on-a-trend types like '60s spymania product Nick Fury, or the Mack Bolan-inspired The Punisher.3 There was less such inhibition regarding the villains, where I think there was less aspiration to produce something different from DC's offerings.
1. One might also count the original Green Lantern Alan Scott as yet another cape-wearer, but admittedly people are much more likely to remember Hal Jordan (not usually pictured with a cape), and it is what people usually remember that matters for the purposes of this discussion.
2. Of course, those deeply steeped in comics lore can and do cite instances where, for example, Wolverine did wear a cape, but this was usually so long ago, rare, brief or unusual that it was never properly part of the character's image.
3. I refer here to John Barnes' theory of a three-generation life cycle. Discussed previously on this blog in many a post, you can find it applied to superhero comics specifically here.
Thursday, August 31, 2023
John Barnes' Three-Generation Life Cycle for Creative Genres and the Superhero Comic
Ever since first encountering John Barnes' theory of the three generation life cycle of a creative genre a decade and a half ago I have found it handy indeed in considering the state of many an aspect of recent cultural life.* Certainly it was much on my mind as I considered the state of science fiction back when I wrote "The End of Science Fiction?"--and it has seemed to me worth citing as well where the genre of spy fiction has been concerned.
To put it very briefly, in the first generation of the genre's life cycle artists discover something new and give us the founding classics that defined the genre, established an audience, produced a conversation and in time a tradition. The second generation finds all this very firmly in place and, maybe sensing that it is in need of a shake-up, and guided by critical reassessment of the old classics, locates and exploits a good many unrealized potentials. The third generation is less concerned with innovation, of which there is less possibility (the law of diminishing returns is most certainly operative here), than "doing it well" as it turns into "inside joke . . . treasured family story . . . or a set of exercises in which to display virtuosity." Afterward the genre passes out of life into "afterlife," in which people may go on enjoying it, and even producing in it, but in which very little new or significant can be expected to appear, the essential ideas and range of the form, the essential "canon" of works pretty much settled and not much added.
This seems to me to apply to the superhero comic just as it does to the histories of those other genres I discussed. I think of the first generation of the genre as that "Golden Age" heyday of DC Comics which gave us such foundational figures as Superman, Batman, Wonder Woman, Green Lantern and other Justice League stalwarts. I think of that "Silver Age" where Marvel really made its mark as thoroughly "second generation"--Stan Lee and Jack Kirby doing what DC had not done in deciding to situate their characters in the real city of New York rather than some analog like Gotham, in giving them "everyday problems" in that way most associated with Spider-Man, in the stress on younger heroes like Peter Parker and the original students at Charles Xavier's School for Gifted Youngsters, and so on. (I think we can see something of this, too, when we consider Green Lantern's trajectory in the 1970s.) And when I look at later figures like the great Alan Moore, in whose works the superhero comic most certainly seems a matter of "inside joke," "treasured family story" and "exercise in which to display virtuosity," I definitely find myself feeling that superhero comics had moved into their third generation by the '80s--four decades ago.
The implication is that at this point super hero comics are well into the "afterlife" phase. This may seem an overly pessimistic assessment, but just think about it-- what have we really seen since the '80s that you would really consider transformative within American superhero comics? I certainly cannot think of a thing--though anyone who can think of something is, as always, welcome to offer their thoughts in the comment thread.
* The theory, which Barnes laid out in his essay "Reading for the Undead" in the defunct Helix magazine, unfortunately does not seem to be available anywhere, only secondary comment about it--like Sean Wilcox's BFS Journal essay "Reading John Barnes' 'Reading for the Undead'" (which ran in 2018), and of course my own uses of Barnes' concept.
To put it very briefly, in the first generation of the genre's life cycle artists discover something new and give us the founding classics that defined the genre, established an audience, produced a conversation and in time a tradition. The second generation finds all this very firmly in place and, maybe sensing that it is in need of a shake-up, and guided by critical reassessment of the old classics, locates and exploits a good many unrealized potentials. The third generation is less concerned with innovation, of which there is less possibility (the law of diminishing returns is most certainly operative here), than "doing it well" as it turns into "inside joke . . . treasured family story . . . or a set of exercises in which to display virtuosity." Afterward the genre passes out of life into "afterlife," in which people may go on enjoying it, and even producing in it, but in which very little new or significant can be expected to appear, the essential ideas and range of the form, the essential "canon" of works pretty much settled and not much added.
This seems to me to apply to the superhero comic just as it does to the histories of those other genres I discussed. I think of the first generation of the genre as that "Golden Age" heyday of DC Comics which gave us such foundational figures as Superman, Batman, Wonder Woman, Green Lantern and other Justice League stalwarts. I think of that "Silver Age" where Marvel really made its mark as thoroughly "second generation"--Stan Lee and Jack Kirby doing what DC had not done in deciding to situate their characters in the real city of New York rather than some analog like Gotham, in giving them "everyday problems" in that way most associated with Spider-Man, in the stress on younger heroes like Peter Parker and the original students at Charles Xavier's School for Gifted Youngsters, and so on. (I think we can see something of this, too, when we consider Green Lantern's trajectory in the 1970s.) And when I look at later figures like the great Alan Moore, in whose works the superhero comic most certainly seems a matter of "inside joke," "treasured family story" and "exercise in which to display virtuosity," I definitely find myself feeling that superhero comics had moved into their third generation by the '80s--four decades ago.
The implication is that at this point super hero comics are well into the "afterlife" phase. This may seem an overly pessimistic assessment, but just think about it-- what have we really seen since the '80s that you would really consider transformative within American superhero comics? I certainly cannot think of a thing--though anyone who can think of something is, as always, welcome to offer their thoughts in the comment thread.
* The theory, which Barnes laid out in his essay "Reading for the Undead" in the defunct Helix magazine, unfortunately does not seem to be available anywhere, only secondary comment about it--like Sean Wilcox's BFS Journal essay "Reading John Barnes' 'Reading for the Undead'" (which ran in 2018), and of course my own uses of Barnes' concept.
Tuesday, August 29, 2023
The Summer 2023 Box Office: Just How Did the Predictions Fare?
This summer I discussed a good many predictions about how various films would fare at the box office--and made a few predictions of my own. These included eight predictions I offered in advance of the film's release, in which I also explained my reasoning at some length. Some of the movies I made predictions about have already all but disappeared from theaters, their runs over, while the others discussed here (the last of which was mid-July's Mission: Impossible 7) do not have much further to go, the matter of their performance almost as settled. The result is that it is not too soon to consider how those predictions fared--and to that end this post revisits the predictions I made about those eight films.
Guardians of the Galaxy, Volume 3
On the basis of the grosses of the prior two Guardians of the Galaxy films one would have expected the third film to also be a billion-dollar hit--but the trend of the grosses of the films in the Marvel Cinematic Universe (MCU)'s various series has been downward, with new sequels making between three-quarters and half what the preceding films in their series' did. Adjusting that billion dollar hit expectation for that reality I projected a $700 million global gross for Guardians--and in the wake of the disappointing opening weekend wondered if the film would not do worse than that. The second weekend, however, hinted at strong enough legs that the film could go a little higher--perhaps as high as $875 million. In the end the movie made $846 million--not too far outside the range I predicted pre-release, and certainly not so much so as to really defy the trend from which Marvel's releases had been suffering through the prior year (the movie's take in the end a rough fifth down from what Guardians of the Galaxy 2 scored in real terms).
Fast X
Working in the same manner as before (the inflation-adjusted grosses of prior series films, the downward trend in those grosses) I estimated that Fast X would pull in $750-$850 million. The movie made $705 million--performing a little below the bottom end of the range here.
Spider-Man: Across the Spider-Verse
Considering Spider-Man: Across the Spider-Verse I was, I think, more optimistic than I was about any of the summer's other movies, partly because of the evidences of audience anticipation. I in fact suggested that the movie, which Boxoffice Pro early on estimated would break the $300 million barrier in North America alone, could be the biggest superhero film of the year. I was less bullish on the movie's overseas performance, excitement elsewhere not quite as easy to detect. Still, I saw the plausible range of its global gross as $500-$750 million (with the low end mainly defined by the sequel's doing no better than the original).
As it happened, Spider-Man: Across the Spider-verse grossed a sensational $380 million in North America (close to twice the gross of the original Into the Spider-Verse), and a respectable $688 million worldwide. In the process it beat Guardians of the Galaxy 3 (and The Flash) to at least be the #1 superhero movie of 2023 in the North American market, while if doing less well than Star-Lord overseas, still posting a higher real-terms gross than the film that began the series (hence, the extra $300 million+ from the international market).
Transformers: Rise of the Beasts
My expectation regarding the latest Transformers film was a gross in the $300-$450 million range (with this so much consistent with the downward trend of the series that the decision to make an additional $200 million Transformers film seemed to me incomprehensible). The film, which in North America had the benefit of an opening weekend a bit stronger than the very low expectations held for it, has at least avoided the worst, but not done much better than approach the upper end of the range--with some $439 million collected globally.
The Flash
Initially considering the performance of The Flash I mostly went by whether others' guesses seemed plausible. Originally seeming to tend toward the $700 million range this seemed a safe enough anticipation for a big DCEU movie getting a big summer release. Still, as the hype for the movie as "the greatest superhero movie ever made" built I gave the matter a little thought--comparing the guess with how other DCEU films had done. I was simply unable to see this one breaking the billion-dollar barrier, with $750-$850 million seeming the plausible range at my most optimistic. Of course, the expectations for the film collapsed quickly, in part because of what the box office tracking showed, and my estimate just before the opening weekend was down to $300-$550 million. As it happened, the low end of the range was only slightly optimistic (the movie having $269 million grossed to date) in the weakest performance of any of the movies discussed here, and what has proven a debacle for the DCEU.
Elemental
In contrast with the high expectations surrounding many of the films that were badly disappointed this year (epitomized by The Flash) Elemental arrived with expectations that were none too impressive, with the high end of Boxoffice Pro's projection not seeing the movie break $100 million domestically. Still, extrapolating from prior Disney films' performance I speculated that the film might, with decent legs and a stronger reception overseas than in the domestic market (more "concept-heavy" movies tend to do better internationally than in North America) it might do better than that. The result was a plausible range of $250-$450 million, give or take. As it happened, Elemental has had very good legs indeed (in North America thus far taking in over five times its opening weekend gross, such that here the gross stands at $152 million), while indeed having that robust international performance (making twice as much money overseas as it did in North America). The result is that the film has slightly bettered the upper end of the range I predicted (with $469 million collected so far)--which is not quite enough to have Disney crowing, but should put the extreme pessimism about it into perspective (especially given how well Disney tends to do in home entertainment, which may let it even turn a profit).
Indiana Jones and the Dial of Destiny
On the basis of the prior four films performance I suggested $1 billion as the likely gross of Indiana Jones 5, with a quarter-billion dollar margin of error ($750 million-$1.25 billion), but already in April I declared the possibility of a Solo-like collapse (instead of the narrative that it would play like Top Gun 2 that some of the claqueurs were pushing). The Solo scenario seemed to me much more plausible after the bungled premiere of the film at Cannes, and the way the promotional effort ran out of steam afterwards, such that by opening weekend Solo was what I had come to expect. And indeed the film played like Solo in current dollar terms, falling short of the $400 million mark ($381 million taken in after almost two months in the theaters)--and adjusted for inflation, actually did worse. The result is that, to go by the available data, only Indiana Jones 5 compares with The Flash as a disaster for the studios this year.
Mission: Impossible--Dead Reckoning, Part One
Working on the basis of prior films' performance and tracking--with it seeming possible that the Tom Cruise film would get a bump from the good will toward last summer's Top Gun 2 (compensating for a likely weaker performance in the important Chinese market this time around) I estimated that the global gross for Mission: Impossible 7 would be in the $850-$950 million range. As things stand the film has, after seven weeks in release with not much further to go, taken in just $174 million domestically and $552 million worldwide. This is not just a much weaker showing than I earlier anticipated, but when adjusted for inflation a new low for the series, both the domestic and the global revenue lower than the gross for the movie that was the previous low, 2006's Mission: Impossible III. (The result is that it seems to me that this was the one time this summer when, even just before release, I was so wide off the mark.)
Of course, big a part of this summer's box office as these eight films were they were not the whole of it--or even the totality of the films I discussed. Still, I only discussed The Little Mermaid after its rather dismaying opening weekend. (My expectation then was that it would make $300-$350 million domestically, $500-$700 million worldwide. The movie's performance has been in line with the low end of that prediction--just $298 million grossed in North America, $569 million worldwide--which is more than Elemental made, but an undeniable letdown in comparison with the prior live-action adaptations of Disney's animated classics.) I discussed Barbie and Oppenheimer, but attempted no number-crunching in regard to these films, which lack convenient points of comparison. (Certainly, though, I did not expect Barbie to break the billion-dollar barrier--I had thought this likely beyond any live-action movie this year, and the expectation of that only grew as one likely candidate after another flopped. I did express some skepticism about Oppenheimer's legs given its "arty" filmmaking style--indeed, suggested there might be a collapse in attendance after the first weekend--but it has held up pretty well, with the movie now on the way to quadrupling its opening weekend gross, giving it $299 million in North America and $778 million globally.) And I did give some thought to how Blue Beetle might do (suggesting it might do a bit better than it was credited with, a prediction that now seems validated, even as the film still looks like it will lose money).
The result is that, while I do not think I did too badly with the estimates, this summer has certainly had its share of surprises for onlookers--those movies that should have been the most reliable performers consistently letting down their backers, while a few of those less conventional releases (the animated Spider-Man, Barbie, Oppenheimer) often performed spectacularly. Indeed, when in a few days we are in a position to consider the summer season as a whole we are likely to conclude that, amid a generally disappointing season, those riskier picks rescued the summer from disaster.
Guardians of the Galaxy, Volume 3
On the basis of the grosses of the prior two Guardians of the Galaxy films one would have expected the third film to also be a billion-dollar hit--but the trend of the grosses of the films in the Marvel Cinematic Universe (MCU)'s various series has been downward, with new sequels making between three-quarters and half what the preceding films in their series' did. Adjusting that billion dollar hit expectation for that reality I projected a $700 million global gross for Guardians--and in the wake of the disappointing opening weekend wondered if the film would not do worse than that. The second weekend, however, hinted at strong enough legs that the film could go a little higher--perhaps as high as $875 million. In the end the movie made $846 million--not too far outside the range I predicted pre-release, and certainly not so much so as to really defy the trend from which Marvel's releases had been suffering through the prior year (the movie's take in the end a rough fifth down from what Guardians of the Galaxy 2 scored in real terms).
Fast X
Working in the same manner as before (the inflation-adjusted grosses of prior series films, the downward trend in those grosses) I estimated that Fast X would pull in $750-$850 million. The movie made $705 million--performing a little below the bottom end of the range here.
Spider-Man: Across the Spider-Verse
Considering Spider-Man: Across the Spider-Verse I was, I think, more optimistic than I was about any of the summer's other movies, partly because of the evidences of audience anticipation. I in fact suggested that the movie, which Boxoffice Pro early on estimated would break the $300 million barrier in North America alone, could be the biggest superhero film of the year. I was less bullish on the movie's overseas performance, excitement elsewhere not quite as easy to detect. Still, I saw the plausible range of its global gross as $500-$750 million (with the low end mainly defined by the sequel's doing no better than the original).
As it happened, Spider-Man: Across the Spider-verse grossed a sensational $380 million in North America (close to twice the gross of the original Into the Spider-Verse), and a respectable $688 million worldwide. In the process it beat Guardians of the Galaxy 3 (and The Flash) to at least be the #1 superhero movie of 2023 in the North American market, while if doing less well than Star-Lord overseas, still posting a higher real-terms gross than the film that began the series (hence, the extra $300 million+ from the international market).
Transformers: Rise of the Beasts
My expectation regarding the latest Transformers film was a gross in the $300-$450 million range (with this so much consistent with the downward trend of the series that the decision to make an additional $200 million Transformers film seemed to me incomprehensible). The film, which in North America had the benefit of an opening weekend a bit stronger than the very low expectations held for it, has at least avoided the worst, but not done much better than approach the upper end of the range--with some $439 million collected globally.
The Flash
Initially considering the performance of The Flash I mostly went by whether others' guesses seemed plausible. Originally seeming to tend toward the $700 million range this seemed a safe enough anticipation for a big DCEU movie getting a big summer release. Still, as the hype for the movie as "the greatest superhero movie ever made" built I gave the matter a little thought--comparing the guess with how other DCEU films had done. I was simply unable to see this one breaking the billion-dollar barrier, with $750-$850 million seeming the plausible range at my most optimistic. Of course, the expectations for the film collapsed quickly, in part because of what the box office tracking showed, and my estimate just before the opening weekend was down to $300-$550 million. As it happened, the low end of the range was only slightly optimistic (the movie having $269 million grossed to date) in the weakest performance of any of the movies discussed here, and what has proven a debacle for the DCEU.
Elemental
In contrast with the high expectations surrounding many of the films that were badly disappointed this year (epitomized by The Flash) Elemental arrived with expectations that were none too impressive, with the high end of Boxoffice Pro's projection not seeing the movie break $100 million domestically. Still, extrapolating from prior Disney films' performance I speculated that the film might, with decent legs and a stronger reception overseas than in the domestic market (more "concept-heavy" movies tend to do better internationally than in North America) it might do better than that. The result was a plausible range of $250-$450 million, give or take. As it happened, Elemental has had very good legs indeed (in North America thus far taking in over five times its opening weekend gross, such that here the gross stands at $152 million), while indeed having that robust international performance (making twice as much money overseas as it did in North America). The result is that the film has slightly bettered the upper end of the range I predicted (with $469 million collected so far)--which is not quite enough to have Disney crowing, but should put the extreme pessimism about it into perspective (especially given how well Disney tends to do in home entertainment, which may let it even turn a profit).
Indiana Jones and the Dial of Destiny
On the basis of the prior four films performance I suggested $1 billion as the likely gross of Indiana Jones 5, with a quarter-billion dollar margin of error ($750 million-$1.25 billion), but already in April I declared the possibility of a Solo-like collapse (instead of the narrative that it would play like Top Gun 2 that some of the claqueurs were pushing). The Solo scenario seemed to me much more plausible after the bungled premiere of the film at Cannes, and the way the promotional effort ran out of steam afterwards, such that by opening weekend Solo was what I had come to expect. And indeed the film played like Solo in current dollar terms, falling short of the $400 million mark ($381 million taken in after almost two months in the theaters)--and adjusted for inflation, actually did worse. The result is that, to go by the available data, only Indiana Jones 5 compares with The Flash as a disaster for the studios this year.
Mission: Impossible--Dead Reckoning, Part One
Working on the basis of prior films' performance and tracking--with it seeming possible that the Tom Cruise film would get a bump from the good will toward last summer's Top Gun 2 (compensating for a likely weaker performance in the important Chinese market this time around) I estimated that the global gross for Mission: Impossible 7 would be in the $850-$950 million range. As things stand the film has, after seven weeks in release with not much further to go, taken in just $174 million domestically and $552 million worldwide. This is not just a much weaker showing than I earlier anticipated, but when adjusted for inflation a new low for the series, both the domestic and the global revenue lower than the gross for the movie that was the previous low, 2006's Mission: Impossible III. (The result is that it seems to me that this was the one time this summer when, even just before release, I was so wide off the mark.)
Of course, big a part of this summer's box office as these eight films were they were not the whole of it--or even the totality of the films I discussed. Still, I only discussed The Little Mermaid after its rather dismaying opening weekend. (My expectation then was that it would make $300-$350 million domestically, $500-$700 million worldwide. The movie's performance has been in line with the low end of that prediction--just $298 million grossed in North America, $569 million worldwide--which is more than Elemental made, but an undeniable letdown in comparison with the prior live-action adaptations of Disney's animated classics.) I discussed Barbie and Oppenheimer, but attempted no number-crunching in regard to these films, which lack convenient points of comparison. (Certainly, though, I did not expect Barbie to break the billion-dollar barrier--I had thought this likely beyond any live-action movie this year, and the expectation of that only grew as one likely candidate after another flopped. I did express some skepticism about Oppenheimer's legs given its "arty" filmmaking style--indeed, suggested there might be a collapse in attendance after the first weekend--but it has held up pretty well, with the movie now on the way to quadrupling its opening weekend gross, giving it $299 million in North America and $778 million globally.) And I did give some thought to how Blue Beetle might do (suggesting it might do a bit better than it was credited with, a prediction that now seems validated, even as the film still looks like it will lose money).
The result is that, while I do not think I did too badly with the estimates, this summer has certainly had its share of surprises for onlookers--those movies that should have been the most reliable performers consistently letting down their backers, while a few of those less conventional releases (the animated Spider-Man, Barbie, Oppenheimer) often performed spectacularly. Indeed, when in a few days we are in a position to consider the summer season as a whole we are likely to conclude that, amid a generally disappointing season, those riskier picks rescued the summer from disaster.
Monday, August 28, 2023
Mission: Impossible 7's Third Weekend at the Box Office
NOTE: I wrote this just after Mission: Impossible 7's third weekend at the box office (July 28-July 30), but was unable to post it at the time. I decided to go ahead and put it up anyway for what it is worth.
Last week Boxoffice Pro estimated that Mission: Impossible 7, going into its third weekend in release, would see a mere 31 percent drop in its domestic gross in the third from the second Friday-to-Sunday period, working out to a $13 million+ ($13.3 million) addition to its collection for a total of $142 million.
Once again--even at this late stage of things at which the publication's buoyant expectations for the film circa mid-June have evaporated--Boxoffice Pro proved overoptimistic about this one. The actual drop was 45 percent. Thus, it added under $11 million ($10.7 million) to the take, raising the 17-day total to just $139 million.
Assuming the film suffers just 45 percent drops from week to week (which would be a good deal better than the 61 percent decline the film actually saw in its second week) from this week forward (as of Friday it had just $129 million in the till), the film would be hard-pressed to reach the $180 million mark, a level which in inflation-adjusted terms would be a series low in North America. (After all, even Mission: Impossible III broke the $200 million mark at summer of 2023 prices, a feat looking ever more beyond this one.)
Of course, in relative terms the film is not doing too badly abroad--for now making more than twice its domestic gross internationally (the domestic/international split now along the lines of 31 domestic/69 international), which is in line with the later films. Still, applying that to a final domestic take of $180 million would work out to a final gross of $580 million, again, short of what even the troubled Mission: Impossible III made--in even a relatively optimistic scenario. (Assuming the 61 percent drops prove more characteristic of its trajectory the domestic gross could be closer to $160 million than $180 million.)
Once again, the film is not doing well relative to the investment put into it--so that, just like so many of the films preceding it this summer, it calls into question the viability of not just the franchise but the whole model of filmmaking associated with it.
Last week Boxoffice Pro estimated that Mission: Impossible 7, going into its third weekend in release, would see a mere 31 percent drop in its domestic gross in the third from the second Friday-to-Sunday period, working out to a $13 million+ ($13.3 million) addition to its collection for a total of $142 million.
Once again--even at this late stage of things at which the publication's buoyant expectations for the film circa mid-June have evaporated--Boxoffice Pro proved overoptimistic about this one. The actual drop was 45 percent. Thus, it added under $11 million ($10.7 million) to the take, raising the 17-day total to just $139 million.
Assuming the film suffers just 45 percent drops from week to week (which would be a good deal better than the 61 percent decline the film actually saw in its second week) from this week forward (as of Friday it had just $129 million in the till), the film would be hard-pressed to reach the $180 million mark, a level which in inflation-adjusted terms would be a series low in North America. (After all, even Mission: Impossible III broke the $200 million mark at summer of 2023 prices, a feat looking ever more beyond this one.)
Of course, in relative terms the film is not doing too badly abroad--for now making more than twice its domestic gross internationally (the domestic/international split now along the lines of 31 domestic/69 international), which is in line with the later films. Still, applying that to a final domestic take of $180 million would work out to a final gross of $580 million, again, short of what even the troubled Mission: Impossible III made--in even a relatively optimistic scenario. (Assuming the 61 percent drops prove more characteristic of its trajectory the domestic gross could be closer to $160 million than $180 million.)
Once again, the film is not doing well relative to the investment put into it--so that, just like so many of the films preceding it this summer, it calls into question the viability of not just the franchise but the whole model of filmmaking associated with it.
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