Box office: 'Mission: Impossible — Rogue Nation' cruising to $45m-plus U.S. debut
Tom Cruise's Mission: Impossible -; Rogue Nation is off to a pleasing start at the North American box office, where it is pacing to gross $18 million-plus for the day for a weekend debut in the $45 million-plus range, if not north of $47 million.
Friday's take includes $4 million in preshow screenings.
There's been plenty of speculation as to how the big-budget film, costing Paramount and Skydance Productions $150 million to make, will fare in the U.S. At this rate, Rogue Nation could match the debut of Mission: Impossible III and exceed the opening of the last installment, Mission: Impossible -; Ghost Protocol, although a comparison to the latter is tough because it played its first weekend in Imax runs.
The critically acclaimed film is the fifth installment in the action franchise and is playing in 3,956 North American theaters. It will easily win the weekend, and is expected to be even bigger overseas, where it rolls out in numerous markets (Cruise remains a far bigger star internationally). The Mission: Impossible movies have never opened to huge numbers, outside of the second film, which took in $70.8 million over the long Memorial Day weekend in 2000, including $57 million for the weekend itself.
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Written and directed by Christopher McQuarrie, the new Paramount and Skydance film sees Hunt and his team attempting to prove the existence of (and then stop) the Syndicate, an international criminal consortium. Jeremy Renner, Simon Pegg and Rebecca Ferguson also star.
Ghost Protocol, directed by Brad Bird, revitalized the spy-action franchise, earning $694.7 million globally, a series best. That included an international total of $485.3 million.
The weekend's other new wide player, Vacation, is doing less business than expected after opening midweek. The comedy, garnering poor reviews, earned $6.2 million on Wednesday and Thursday, and is tipped to gross $22 million for the five days, including roughly $16 million for the Friday-Sunday frame.
New Line spent a modest $30 million to make the reboot, starring Ed Helms, Christina Applegate, Leslie Mann and Chris Hemsworth.
The movie is a sequel of sorts to the first National Lampoon's Vacation, directed by Harold Ramis, and picks up as Rusty Griswold (Helms), now grown, takes his own family on a vacation. Applegate plays Griswold's wife, while Mann will portray Audrey Griswold, Rusty's sister. Hemsworth will play Audrey's husband, an up-and-coming anchorman named Stone Crandall. Chevy Chase and Beverly D'Angelo make cameos.
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Click through for photos of Tom Cruise's stunt moments:
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