Great read. Thanks!
1 Like
Yes, thank you. Very interesting to read.
Hereās an interesting footnote to the box office numbersā¦
If you measure this weekendās performance based on number of tickets sold and not revenue - 80% of people going to a movie in the U.S. this weekend chose Barbie or Oppenheimer. Only about 6% chose Mission Impossible.
There was obviously going to be a 2nd weekend dropoff especially with the increased competition but I canāt think Paramount is happy with that after only 1 week.
They probably werenāt expecting those two films to end up advertising each other as well as themselves. I imagine no-one saw Barbenheimer coming.
3 Likes
No, but you can bet somewhere studio executives are desperately trying to retro-engineer the next one.
Almost definitely
What could gel with DUNE Part 2?
The most unusual way of measuring performance is how we do it in Germany: wr count the number of sold tickets. Weird, isnāt it? 
According to this method (as of June 2023), the most successful movie in Germany is The Jungle Book, by a wide margin, with a bit more than 27 Million spectators. Next up, who would have thought, is Titanic with almost 19 Million. Money wise, Titanic made 128.5 million Euros, The Jungle Book āonlyā 91.8 (inflation adjusted). Interesting fact: The Jungle Book achieved that with only 80 copies, whereas Titanic had 824.
Best Bond movie is TB, rank 15, almost 11 million spectators, 16.6 million Euros. Top 100 contains all Connerys except DAF, all Craigs except CR and QoS (even though QoS was most succesfull movie in 2008) and TSWLM
3 Likes
Seems people really have free timeā¦
1 Like
Both did better than expected. Having seen both Iād say itās well deserved, both were brilliant.
3 Likes
Quite assuring that a three hour biographical film for adults had such a tremendous opening weekend.
2 Likes
Iāve settled on a franchise ranking:
- Fallout
- Rogue Nation
- Ghost Protocol
- Dead Reckoning Part One
- Mission: Impossible
- Mission: Impossible 3
- Mission Impossible 2
Dead Reckoning Part One is a good movie and it continued the run of consistency, but I did prefer other films in the series and think they had more spark. The box office take is disappointing and somewhat surprising to me, but I think itāll turn out okay in the end.
5 Likes
I havenāt seen it yet but I can imagine that, apart from its badly considered release date, there is one big overlooked problem with the M:I franchise: the last film, FALLOUT, already worked as a summation of the series and offered so much so well that it was impossible to have this new film feel fresh or needed. Especially with a second part planned and announced.
Maybe this is why Bond still can go on: while living on the established formula, every new era really refreshes the perspective for that formula.
5 Likes
So youāre suspecting itās run into Bourneās problem?
3 Likes
Seems so.
Although I loved the last two films, with the great collaboration between Cruise and McQuarrie, I was surprised when this two-parter was announced, thinking FALLOUT was such a perfect film to conclude the series.
Hindsight is always wiser, I know, but I wonder whether it was a sensible idea to make this next chapter as two films, even if this part one, as I understand, does not have a cliffhanger.
Since it was inevitable after the success of FALLOUT that another movie would be made, they probably would have fared better with making one and thinking about another one afterwards.
Sure, Cruise is not getting younger, despite him making a nice PR-comment about going on until his 80Ā“s like Harrison Ford. But has M:I reached its saturation point?
I must admit: although the motorcycle stunt was great to look at in the trailers it did not have the same effect on me as Cruise holding on to a starting plane or jumping from building to building in London or doing that insane helicopter thing in FALLOUT. Maybe at some point I got complacent about this, thinkingā¦ yeah, he did it for real butā¦ hey, do something more outrageous?
With BOURNE I had the feeling that part 2 was new and fantasticā¦ and then part 3 was already doing the same thing but making Bourne an indestructible terminator. And with the storylines coming to a close, I had enough. Then, of course, Bourne 4 came along, and it was just a dragged out repeat, extremely boring for my taste.
M:I has, of course, what BOURNE never had: irony and fun. But I am really curious what Part 2 of DR can offer. They have kept suspiciously quiet about it. What is the super stunt this time?
3 Likes
I think Paramount see the end is nigh as Mission Impossible without Cruise seemsā¦iām not finishing that for obvious reasons.
I think they made a mistake not changing lead after MI:3 - I LOVED everything the came after, but that was a natural ending for Ethan Hunt that would allow a new lead to come in to fill the gap. The longer Cruise has stayed, the more irreplaceable heās become.
3 Likes
They were contemplating, as I recall, to let Jeremy Renner take over. But BOURNE LEGACY did not work in his favour, I guess.
And really, who could have taken over from Tom Cruise?
1 Like
I think, with a different approach, Superman could have taken over after Fallout. Cavill was really, really charismatic in that oneā¦
1 Like