Weekend predictions: Dead Reckoning headed for softer-than-expected debut

July 14, 2023

Mission: Impossible — Dead Reckoning Part One

Mission: Impossible, Dead Reckoning—Part One will need to pick up its pace over the weekend to come in close to pre-release expectations. Its Wednesday and Thursday numbers ($15.5 million and $8.3 million, respectively) are perfectly respectable, but they point to a five-day opening under $70 million, and a Friday–Sunday weekend well behind Mission: Impossible—Fallout’s $61.2 million back in 2018.

Our prediction for Dead Reckoning is based on films with Wednesday openings that earned between $7.5 million and $32 million on opening day, and that weren’t released over a holiday weekend:

The performance of The Super Mario Bros. Movie earlier this year gives some cause for hope, in that it earned 2.5 times its Wednesday-Thursday total over the weekend. Mission: Impossible would bring in close to $60 million from Friday to Sunday if it matched that performance. Mario was already showing incredible momentum on Thursday though, and Dead Reckoning is performing almost identically to Transformers: The Last Knight so far. Last Knight made $44.7 million over its first weekend, and $68.5 million over five days.

Based on how it’s doing so far, Mission: Impossible looks like it will fall short of $70 million over its first five days, far behind the $100 million or so that was generally expected. Maybe its appeal to an older demographic will give it unusually long legs through the rest of the weekend, but even that would get it closer to $80 million than much beyond.

Here’s what the model thinks the top 10 will look like.

Indiana Jones and the Dial of Destiny is expected to leapfrog Insidious: The Red Door to remain in second place for the weekend.

Sound of Freedom is the wildcard though. If it performs like a normal movie it’ll decline around 50% from last weekend. However, its Thursday earnings were 24% up from last week, suggesting it could do considerably better. A weekend over $10 million seems like a decent bet, and it could even threaten a second- or third-place finish this weekend.

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Filed under: Weekend Preview, Indiana Jones and the Dial of Destiny, Mission: Impossible—Fallout, The Super Mario Bros. Movie, Sound of Freedom, Mission: Impossible Dead Reckoning Part One, Insidious: The Red Door