The fifth entry in the long running Mission: Impossible franchise opened to a solid $56 million this weekend, above expectations and in line for the third biggest opening of Tom Cruise's career, behind War of the Worlds and Mission: Impossible II. It's a good start for the film, and though it's above past entries in the series, some of them, adjusted for inflation (like MI:2), pulled in bigger audiences overall. Still, it's a success and with a $65 million opening overseas, it comes it at $121 million worldwide for the first weekend. The other new release this week, the remake/reboot of National Lampoon's Vacation, was a disappointment, opening on Wednesday but only coming in with $21 million for the five days. After the success of We're the Millers (which is the real reason this movie was greenlit) that's pretty much a bust.
Ant-Man slipped to third for the week, pulling in $12 million for a new total of $147 million, on track to earn at least $160, while Minions has stayed in the top five for a month now, and Pixels fell 57% from last week's soft opening to just barely come in fifth. Minions has now earned $850 million worldwide, a huge success for the little alien dudes, even if the movie was reportedly a lazy prequel- I guess there's no stopping whatever the appeal of these things are to kids.
Top 5:
- Mission: Impossible- Rogue Nation- $56 million
- Vacation- $14.9 million
- Ant-Man- $12.6 million
- Minions- $12.2 million
- Pixels- $10.4 million
In limited release, James Pondsolt's The End of the Tour, about a reporter's conversation with David Foster Wallace, starring Jesse Eisenberg and Jason Segel, opened pretty well on just a few screens to a $31k average, despite being shrouded in a media controversy (an elite one, to be sure) over the accuracy of the film to Wallace's life. Amy has now grossed over $6 million total and Mr. Holmes crossed $10 million for relative successes in what's been a very weak year for independent films at the box office. Next week it's the opening of Fantastic Four (which is being hidden by the studio from critics until the last minute- uh oh), and Meryl Streep's Ricki and the Flash, along with the Jason Bateman/Joel Edgarton thriller The Gift, and the limited opening of the Sundance hit Diary of a Teenage Girl. The August doldrums have begun, people. See you next week!
