With just under a month before its July 12 release date, advance tickets have gone on sale for “Mission: Impossible – Dead Reckoning Part I.” To mark the occasion, Dolby is offering a new poster. The artwork, included below, features Tom Cruise’s Ethan Hunt hanging onto the bottom of a train as the vehicle seemingly tips over a cliff. It’s not unlike a major sequence in Bollywood’s action spectacular “Pathan,” which featured Shah Rukh Khan and Salman Khan racing up a train as the vehicle plummets off the tracks.
That’s not to argue anything resembling plagiarism (fans have already argued that the “Pathaan” scene was lifted from a Jackie Chan anime), since the Indian actioner only opened a few months ago and “Mission: Impossible 7” has been in production since 2020. Besides, at least some Bollywood and Tollywood actioners have a melodramatic, classically romantic sensibility that can feel reminiscent of John Woo’s “Mission: Impossible II.” If we’re lucky enough to have two spectacular action-adventure movies in one year featuring kamikaze heroes barely avoiding a death-by-train drop in a single year, well, then cinema is indeed alive and well.
Christopher McQuarrie, in a statement offered exclusively to TheWrap, noted that “I’m devoted to a fully immersive big screen experience and no big screen experience is complete without the extraordinary detail, depth, power and presence of Dolby Vision and Dolby Atmos.”
There was some gossip two weeks ago concerning Cruise allegedly being all fired up about losing Imax screens in the second weekend to Chris Nolan’s “Oppenheimer,” to which he was reportedly lobbying other PLF formats like Dolby to keep those screens for his actioner on the weekend of July 21. Regardless of how far beyond polite industry conversations that went, the importance of PLF theaters to the theatrical livelihood for tentpoles has only increased as audiences have further prioritized Imax, Dolby and the like amid the COVID-era theatrical recovery.
The Cinema Foundation released a study this past April that stated, among other things, that 13% of those polled would only buy a movie ticket if the movie they wanted to see was available in a premium large-format theater. That points to a situation in the coming years where a big film’s release date could be considerably predicated on whether it will have any PLF exclusivity. The good news for Dolby is that it’s considered one of the more preeminent PLF formats and may well benefit from a would-be PLF format war over the next few years.
As Dolby Head of Cinema and Group Entertainment Jed Harmeson told TheWrap, “There’s no question that this July will be a packed one, with several highly anticipated films like “Mission: Impossible – Dead Reckoning Part I,” “Oppenheimer” and “Barbie” all releasing around the same time. All three of these films will release in Dolby Vision and Dolby Atmos, and are sure to each be stunning titles to see in Dolby Cinema. Ultimately, this reinforces the overall demand for more Dolby Cinemas and PLF screens so we are better equipped to handle the demand we will likely see in July.”
“Mission: Impossible – Dead Reckoning Part” will mark the 500th film formatted in Dolby Vision and Dolby Atmos.
