The Success of ‘Top Gun: Maverick’ Is Good News for ‘Mission: Impossible — Dead Reckoning Part One’
Tom Cruise and Paramount waited more than three decades to make Top Gun: Maverick. Then they waited two years to release it in theaters as they rode out the coronavirus (COVID-19) pandemic. Playing the slow game worked, and the movie took off to become Cruise’s most successful movie. For now. Just as Maverick impacted the box office haul for other summer movies, it might do the same for Mission: Impossible — Dead Reckoning Part One.
‘Top Gun: Maverick’ has made more than $1.37 billion
Within days, Maverick soared and delivered Cruise’s best opening weekend by a wide margin. It needed just eight days to become the actor’s best movie at the domestic box office.
Two months after it opened, it broke Titanic’s record and became Paramount’s highest-grossing movie domestically. As it continued to soar, it reached another milestone with its earnings from IMAX screenings.
As of Aug. 15, 2022, Top Gun: Maverick has been in theaters for 80 days. Unbelievably, it has failed to earn at least $1 million a day at the U.S. box office only twice, per Box Office Mojo. The site puts the movie’s worldwide box office total at $1.37 billion.
After decades spent waiting for Top Gun: Maverick to take off, fans turned out to make it a massive success story. Now, Paramount and Cruise could reap the same rewards in the summer of 2023 with Mission: Impossible — Dead Reckoning Part One.
‘Maverick’ will help make ‘Mission: Impossible — Dead Reckoning Part One’ a massive success, says a box office expert
Top Gun: Maverick gave Cruise his first billion-dollar movie, a highlight in a 40-year career that includes plenty of peaks. His next billion-dollar blockbuster could land in theaters within a year.
According to Paul Dergarabedian, the senior media analyst at Comscore, Maverick’s supersonic success bodes well for Mission: Impossible — Dead Reckoning Part One. Cruise’s next-to-last turn as IMF agent Ethan Hunt is almost guaranteed to follow suit and join the billion-dollar club.
“I would say that Mission: Impossible — Dead Reckoning next summer is as sure as a bet you can have in terms of a movie that we could say is a preordained or predestined blockbuster,” Dergarabedian told the Toronto Sun.
The anticipation of the long wait coupled with the emotional throughlines in Maverick helped make it a critical and commercial success. Cruise fans waited four years between Mission: Impossible Fallout and Maverick (the longest gap of his career). The latter movie proved he’s still a box office star, and the experts give Mission: Impossible — Dead Reckoning Part One a great chance to prove it again.
What we know about ‘Mission: Impossible — Dead Reckoning Part One’ so far
Paramount is keeping many of Mission: Impossible — Dead Reckoning Part One‘s details secret. Still, there are a few things we know about the cast and release date.
The movie releases in the U.S. on July 14, 2023, per Paramount, but it’s not likely to stream on Paramount+.
Dead Reckoning Part One and 2024’s planned Part Two are set up to be Cruise’s farewell to the franchise. Yet some people believe Cruise will remain part of the series even if Ethan Hunt hangs it up as a field agent.
That remains to be seen, but we know Hunt is in the field for Dead Reckoning Part One. Rebecca Ferguson (as Ilsa Faust), Simon Pegg (Benji Dunn), and Ving Rhames (Luther Stickell) return as members of Hunt’s IMF squad. Hayley Atwell joins the cast as Grace. Henry Czerny returns as IMF director Eugene Kittridge. Czerny’s last appearance in the franchise came in the 1996 original.
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