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.