The mission, should you choose to accept it, may be impossible.
Tom Cruise’s three hour opus, “Mission Impossible: Final Reckoning,” had a slow start in previews Thursday night.
The final Ethan Hunt saga was trounced by Disney’s live action remake of its kids’ movie, “Lilo & Stitch.”
The latter made around $14 million. The former came in at $8 million.
Numbers will be updated shortly.
“Final Reckoning” cost around $300 million and Paramount has spent around $100 million in promotion. Cruise has flown all over the world for high ticket premieres to push his product.
But the new “Reckoning” only did $1 million more than the previous outing, “Dead Reckoning,” two years ago, in previews. This is surprising because it looked like IMAX theaters were pretty sold out yesterday.
On Rotten Tomatoes right now, “FR” has an 80 rating from critics, but a 93 from audiences. The second number is most important in this case. If audiences love it, nothing can stop Cruise from a top notch weekend.
Holiday weekends are a marathon, not a sprint. Five days from Thursday to Monday may sort this all out. Or, “Lilo & Stitch” may be the next mission for Cruise and co. to take out!
