The blockbuster ‘Mission Impossible - Final Reckoning’ starring Tom Cruise is showing a lower-than-expected firepower both domestically and internationally.It is a completely different atmosphere from the expectations before its release that it would shake up global theaters, coupled with the anticipation of it being ‘the last in the series’.

O ‘staggered’ by the competition

‘Mission Impossible - Final Reckoning’ (Mission Impossible 8), which was released on the 17th of last month, has mobilized a cumulative audience of 3,138,327(integrated computer network for movie tickets)as of the 14th of this month, one month after its release.It surpassed ‘Mickey 17’ which attracted 3.01 million, and attracted the most audiences among foreign films released this year.However, it seems to have defied expectations that it would show an unprecedented box office speed thanks to the popularity of the series as well as the name value of Tom Cruise, who is considered ‘the most beloved Hollywood star by Koreans’.The previous film, ‘Mission Impossible - Dead Reckoning’, which was released in 2013, surpassed 3 million viewers in 13 days.

Also, ‘Mission Impossible 8’, after giving up its ranking to competitors such as ‘How to Train Your Dragon’ and ‘High Five’, is neck and neck for third place with ‘Shinmyeong’, a low-budget film based on former First Lady Kim Kun-hee that is unexpectedly doing well amid the presidential election season and the atmosphere of a change in government.

It’s not just the domestic box office that’s being ‘clouded’.In North America, it started the box office race with the highest opening score in the series ‘history, but was immediately pushed down in the rankings by Disney’s ‘Lilo & Stitch’, and then fell to third place after just three weeks of release, being pushed down by the ‘John Wick’ spin-off film ‘Ballerina’.

O The production cost of all time is unique… Will the series fail to break even for the first time?

In this situation, global audiences are feeling that, unlike the previous six films that had complete stories as standalone films, this film requires knowledge of the content of the seventh film to understand, and the film has the longest running time in the series at 2 hours and 50 minutes, which is a barrier to viewing.The response SNS that said, “I want to see it, but the running time is too burdensome” is representative of this.

Film experts cited ‘excessive production costs’ as the biggest obstacle to box office success.’Mission Impossible 8’ is known to have spent a huge production cost of 400 million dollars(547.1 billion won)due to the extended filming period caused by COVID-19 and technical internal problems.It is the ‘highest net production cost in film history’, and the analysis is that it is virtually impossible for such a large-scale film to record a profit during the slump in theaters.

According to Box Office Mojo on the 15th, the global cumulative revenue of ‘Mission Impossible 8’ was tallied at 459.47 million dollars(628.463 billion won).Major overseas media outlets predicted that “the break-even point is predicted to be at least 1 billion dollars(1.3678 trillion won), so if this trend continues, it may not record a surplus for the first time in the series’ history.”


Reporter Seungmi smlee@donga.com

This article is automatically translated using Google AI. If you notice any inaccuracies, please let us know at allkstar@donga.com.