Box Office Week: Mission: Impossible - Fallout scores a franchise best opening at #1 with a great $61.5M. Teen Titans Go! To The Movies underwhelms at #5 with $10.5M but only carries a $10M budget. Moviepass was unable to pay for screenings on Thursday and refused to give tickets for M:I - Fallout.

Rank	Title	Domestic Gross (Weekend)	Worldwide Gross (Cume)	Week #	Percentage Change	Budget
1	Mission: Impossible - Fallout	$61,500,000	$153,500,000	1	N/A	$178M
2	Mamma Mia! Here We Go Again	$15,000,000	$167,225,525	2	-57.1%	$75M
3	The Equalizer 2	$14,000,000	$70,331,345	2	-61.1%	$62M
4	Hotel Transylvania 3: Summer Vacation	$12,305,000	$284,228,501	3	-48.2%	$80M
5	Teen Titans Go! To The Movies	$10,510,000	$11,510,000	1	N/A	$10M

---

Notable Box Office Stories:

• Mission: Impossible - Fallout - Whether it was the most expensive mustache in film history, one of the most expensive insurance payouts in film history, or just damn good reviews to thank, it was a good weekend for the 22 year old franchise as it just hit a new high with Mission: Impossible - Fallout opening at #1 with $61.5M. That tops the $57.8M opener set by Mission: Impossible II making this the biggest opening of the franchise and the second biggest of Tom Cruise's career (behind 2005's War of the Worlds). Overseas the film opened well with $92M in 36 markets including a major $24.6M opening in South Korea and it still has some pretty sizable markets to go including France, Australia, Germany, Japan, and China. The film also scored the best reviews of the franchise with an incredible 97% on Rotten Tomatoes and a franchise best A rating on Cinemascore. That's especially big news for this franchise which has always opened somewhat low then just held around for weeks and weeks. In fact of the previous five entries only one (Mission: Impossible III) has had an opening weekend multiplier below 3.5x, which is huge for a major blockbuster franchise. If Fallout performs like the most recent entry (Rogue Nation) it will easily pass $200M domestic. Which is good news because this is a very interesting time for the franchise and its studio.
• Mission: Impossible - Fallout (cont.) - The M:I franchise really is an anomaly in today's market, one that has actual delays between installments, that has a rotating crew of directors and supporting characters, and most notably has a single star who's stunt work is the main draw of the franchise. And while the level of insanity of Cruise's stunts is a big factor in the critical acclaim for Fallout it may finally be just too far. Now just a bit of context, in the film industry lead actors for major studio films are required to get insurance on them. The reason for this is that if an actor is injured, gets sick, or dies during filming then the insurance company will pay to get the film finished with whatever means necessary or cover the losses if it is cancelled. Getting insurance for Tom Cruise has always been a hassle as many did not want to insure his stuntwork as injury or death of Cruise could mean millions of lost investment. And last year these worriers were proven right when Tom Cruise shattered his ankle while performing a stunt jumping between two buildings which resulted in 8 weeks of lost time. In a recent Hollywood Reporter article it is estimated that insurance shilled out a whopping $70M in order to retain the cast and crew while Tom Cruise recovered.
• Mission: Impossible - Fallout (cont.) - So now imagine you are Paramount, where it's worth noting this is the biggest opening for the company since 2014's Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles. Many of your previous hit franchises have completely disintegrated like Transformers and new attempts at franchises like Monster Trucks have totally bombed. Now you have this franchise that is built on Tom Cruise pushing himself to the limits who will be approaching 60 by the time he's probably making M:I 7 and who just ballooned your budget to over $250M due to an injury of his own making. However that insanity and drive is what potentially pushes ticket sales. It's a very odd and bizarre position to be in. The good news is that it seems after insurance payouts and with such a good opening that Fallout will be a financial success for them, but where the hell do you go from here? You could try to make the next film a passing of the torch to a younger star (which was supposed to happen with Jeremy Renner taking over the franchise at the end of 2011's Ghost Protocol but that plan was changed mid-production) but are there that many out there willing to risk like and limb like Cruise? The franchises appeal has been largely built around a single entity so how could you possibly keep it going when inevitably he just can't any more for financial or physical reasons? It's not a question that will be answered by the end of this run or perhaps even by M:I 7. But this does feel like we've finally reached peak Tom Cruise. It's just a matter of what they do with such a valuable but finite resource in the future.
• Teen Titans Go! To The Movies - While the internet widely mocked the trailer for the dark and gritty Titans TV show trailer, their goofy and colorful counterpart made it to the big screen as the movie version of the popular kids cartoon opened to a pretty underwhelming #5 with $10.5M. The good news is that the film did not pull out all the stops in terms of budget, costing just $10M, which is shockingly low for an animated film, even one that was produced likely on FlashPro. However that certainly doesn't cover the marketing budget for the film which was fairly extensive and could result in lost profits by the end of the run. It's always a tough choice to decide if a theatrical release of a popular kids cartoon is worth it but this seems like one of those times a direct to TV approach would make more sense. The film does have pretty good reviews but seeing as how most families might be superhero'd out after a full summer of them, there just doesn't seem to be enough interest to really justify the big red carpet approach for this one.
• Moviepass - While Fallout topped the charts perhaps the bigger news was that it seems "unlimited" movie ticket card company Moviepass may be approaching the end of its life as it had a weekend full of worrying developments. First on Thursday the app straight up did not work, causing many to go to the cinema only to find a downed app and no recourse but to pay gasp out of pocket! The next day it was revealed the reason, that Moviepass straight up ran out of money and had to get a $6.2M loan in order to pay back debts accrued. The result was an insanely frustrating weekend for Moviepass users. Most notably the biggest film of the summer, Leave No Trace, was straight up not allowed to be sold tickets to. Oh and the same was true for Mission: Impossible - Fallout. The blockbusters were declared "premium screenings" and even 2D showings outside of peak hours were still not being sold. The lack of M:I tickets could have eaten into M:I's opening somewhat as around 3 mil Americans currently own Moviepass.
• Moviepass (cont.) - If that wasn't enough many others faced massive "surge" pricing, a recently implemented rule that requires Moviepass users to pay an extra fee for popular times. However many cardholders noticed that the surge times could last all day, often were for empty or barely attended theaters, and prices reached as high as $8 a ticket, nearly full price for some. The company has been pretty quiet on the whole thing but many see this as the sign of the end of the company, which has been hemorrhaging money since announcing the too-good-to-be-true price of $10/per month last year. The amount of people leaving Moviepass this weekend was so intense that competitor Sinema's servers were overloaded with new sign-ups. While Moviepass looks to be on its last legs the impact it had on the industry will be interesting to see, with major chains like AMC , Cinemark, and Alamo Drafthouse finally offering a form of movie theater subscription. Just don't expect a deal as sweet as Moviepass ever again.

---

Films Reddit Wants to Follow

This is a segment where we keep a weekly tally of currently showing films that aren't in the Top 5 that fellow redditors want updates on. If you'd like me to add a film to this chart, make a comment in this thread.

Title	Domestic Gross (Cume)	Worldwide Gross (Cume)	Budget	Week #
Black Panther	$699,955,434	$1,346,619,037	$200M	25
A Quiet Place	$187,841,212	$332,400,298	$17M	17
Avengers: Infinity War	$677,544,078	$2,044,151,008	$315M	14
Deadpool 2	$317,668,854	$731,643,335	$110M	11
Solo: A Star Wars Story	$212,715,759	$388,535,898	$275M	10
Hereditary	$43,745,540	$77,709,314	$10M	8
Incredibles 2	$572,780,648	$996,480,648	$200M	7
Jurassic World: Fallen Kingdom	$397,555,500	$1,235,455,500	$170M	6
Ant-Man and the Wasp	$183,124,127	$394,224,127	$162M	4

---

Notable Film Closings

Title	Domestic Gross (Cume)	Worldwide Gross (Cume)	Budget
The Greatest Showman	$174,340,174	$434,547,571	$84M
Show Dogs	$17,744,685	$35,279,436	$5.5M

As always r/boxoffice is a great place to share links and other conversations about box office news.

Also you can see the archive of all Box Office Week posts at r/moviesboxoffice (which have recently been updated).

Submitted July 30, 2018 at 06:46PM by mi-16evil https://ift.tt/2mVj5Fw