Tom Cruise, the savior of movie theaters, would love it if you bought a ticket next month to see “Mission: Impossible — Dead Reckoning.” But he’d also love it if you went out to see the other films that will be competing against it in theaters this summer, too.
On Wednesday, Cruise posted a picture of him with “Mission: Impossible 7” director Christopher McQuarrie holding tickets to see “Indiana Jones and the Dial of Destiny,” which comes out on Friday, as well as Christopher Nolan’s “Oppenheimer” and Greta Gerwig’s “Barbie,” which come out the week after “Mission: Impossible 7”
“This summer is full of amazing movies to see in theaters,” Cruise tweeted. “Congratulations, Harrison Ford, on 40 years of Indy and one of the most iconic characters in history. I love a double feature, and it doesn’t get more explosive (or more pink) than one with Oppenheimer and Barbie.”
Cruise was the toast of Hollywood last year thanks to “Top Gun: Maverick,” which became summer 2022’s biggest film with nearly $1.5 billion grossed worldwide. During a box office year that saw big boom periods and months-long droughts, “Maverick” became a beacon of hope for movie theaters that they would find a way out of the existential crisis served by the COVID-19 pandemic.
A year later, the summer box office has brought a lot of good and bad. For movie theaters, optimism abounds as a plethora of big studios releases have brought in a more reliable stream of ticket and concession revenue, even if overall grosses are still 20-25% short of where they were prior to the pandemic.
Studios, on the other hand, have had a rougher time of it as many of those movies that theater owners are celebrating came with production budgets that spiraled to between $250-350 million thanks to inflation and COVID-19 safety protocol costs, among other factors.
While some movies like the Marvel films “Guardians of the Galaxy Vol. 3” from Disney and “Spider-Man: Across the Spider-Verse” from Sony have been hits for both distributor and exhibitor, others like Disney’s “The Little Mermaid” and Universal’s “Fast X” have not turned a theatrical profit against their budgets despite topping $500 million worldwide, while Warner Bros.’ “The Flash” is proving to be one of the most high-profile summer bombs in recent memory.
Amid this competition, premium formats have been a hot commodity for movies, desired by filmmakers for their top-notch presentation and by studios for bringing extra money via ticket surcharges. Cruise’s promotion of the “MI7” competition may be connected to that, as Puck News reported earlier this month that Cruise had voiced his displeasure to Paramount executives that the next “Mission: Impossible” would only get nine days of play on Imax and other premium screens before “Oppenheimer” takes over all Imax screens for three weeks.
For Imax, it was a choice between a big star and a big filmmaker it has a long history with. “Top Gun: Maverick” grossed more than $100 million from Imax screens alone, but Christopher Nolan shot “Oppenheimer” entirely in Imax 70mm film — including black and white film never before made for the format — and negotiated alongside Universal for three weeks of exclusivity.
Movie theaters will keep thriving thanks to this intense competition, but for studios that have poured billions into this summer season and have already seen some of their big bets come up empty, there are more battles to come.
