MISSION IMPOSSIBLE 5

MISSION IMPOSSIBLE 5

A lighter weekend at the international box office, which nevertheless saw new benchmarks for Terminator: Genisys and Mission: Impossible – Rogue Nation, the Top 10 studio pictures were down about 11% from last frame. Factoring in this week’s local-language heavy-hitters out of China and Korea, there’s a 9% dip. The new Asian films that made the Top 10 in the current frame included The Hundred Regiments Offensive ($16.2M) and The Dead End ($14M) out of China.

Last year at this time, Dawn Of The Planet Of The Apes had awakened in China with a total $51.2M overseas. It was followed by Lucy’s added $31.2M and Guardians Of The Galaxy’s $19.7M. The top three movies this session, Terminator: Genisys, The Hundred Regiments Offensive and Mission: Impossible – Rogue Nation together grossed just over the DOTPOTA take from last year and repped a 46% drop across the top trio.

Next weekend, EuropaCorp’s The Transporter Refueled stakes out the UK, Germany and Spain among others, but won’t get to France until September 9. The last movie in the franchise, The Transporter 3, starred Jason Statham in 2008. This one, directed by Camille Delamarre, stars Ed Skrein (Ill Manors, the upcoming Deadpool) in Statham’s Frank Martin role. Delamarre edited the last film, along with other Europa titles Colombiana and Taken 2. Transporter 3 performed best offshore in both Germany and France with a total $77M internationally, more than double the domestic take.

Elsewhere, Meryl Streep-starrer Ricki And The Flash will expand to some major markets including France, the UK, Germany, Brazil and Korea. Hitman: Agent 47 and Trainwreck travel to Russia; No Escape adds the UK and France; The Man From U.N.C.L.E. heads to Italy, Brazil and Mexico; and Straight Outta Compton (performing well in key markets this session) goes Down Under. Mission: Impossible is revving up for China, but that release won’t factor next weekend as the movie goes out on Tuesday, September 8.
China updated below the original post. Actuals tomorrow.

 As summer draws to a close in many markets, and with no major new wide releases, this was destined to be a somewhat slower weekend at the international box office. But milestones continue to be passed with good news again for Paramount and Skydance. After opening in China last Sunday, Terminator: Genisys made a big return to the offshore charts, landing at No. 1 for the second weekend in a row. With $23.6M from 25 markets total this frame, the overseas cume is now $320.1M. China’s portion of that is $23.4M this session with $82.8M total after eight days. Also crossing the $300M mark offshore, Par/Skydance’s Mission: Impossible – Rogue Nation tallied up a $15.3M weekend from 64 territories. The international cume on the Tom Cruise thriller is $309M — and it’s still got China to come. M:I 5 is not expected to be No. 2 overall, however, as that spot looks to belong to Chinese historical war epic The Hundred Regiments Offensive. Also notable, Straight Outta Compton had impressive No. 1 starts in the UK and Germany, helped along in part by the filmmakers and cast traveling to the makets for big local events.


TERMINATOR: GENISYS
With a global cume through Sunday of $409.5M, the latest pic in the Terminator franchise is benefitting from a strong China run. The first film import allowed into the Middle Kingdom after the summer blackout, it now has an $82.8M cume there. The weekend was worth $23.6M in total with $23.4M from China. There, it’s currently running 12% ahead of Iron Man 3 and 10% ahead of The Hobbit: The Battle Of The Five Armies over the same number of days. The international take is now $320.1M.

MISSION: IMPOSSIBLE – ROGUE NATION
Also crossing $300M for Paramount and Skydance, Tom Cruise’s latest winged its way to a $309M cume at the international box office this frame. The weekend saw $15.3M from 64 territories with China still to bow on September 8. Openings this session included a No. 1 start in Greece with $279K at 65 locations. Japan held with $2.3M in the 4th frame, 24% below last week and No. 3 in the market behind Jurassic World and Ted 2. The cume there is now $31.9M. M:I5 is still No. 1 in France with a cume of $16.5M; Brazil also held the top spot with a total $7.9M. In Korea, the total is now $41.1M after five frames and the UK has picked up $29M to date, coming in down just 26% from last weekend. Other cumes include Germany ($11.1M) and Italy ($4M). The global haul is now $479.4M. 

MINIONS
Minions, which marched past $1B last week, was given a hearty buongiorno in Italy where it bowed No. 1 with a huge $8.5M to become the biggest opening weekend for an animated film ever in that market where it has a 77% share. Doing the bidding for Universal and Illumination, the little yellow henchmen added a total estimate of $14.9M in 60 territories. That brings the cume overseas to $694.1M. Combined with the U.S. total of $324.8M, the worldwide cume is $1.02B. In other milestones, Minions overtook Ice Age: Dawn Of Dinosaurs’ $690M yesterday to become the 3rd-highest-grossing animated film of all time internationally. There are still three territories to go: Turkey (September 4), China (September 13) and Greece (September 24). 

HITMAN: AGENT 47
In its 2nd offshore frame, Hitman: Agent 47 picked off $13.1M on 5,157 screens in 60 markets. That brings the international cume to $25M. Opening in 38 more plays across Europe and Latin America this frame, the Fox actioner was No. 2 in France with $1.9M; No. 3 in the UK with $1.4M; and No. 1 in Colombia where it opened 123% above The Bourne Legacy. The Malaysia hold was strong at No. 1 for a $2.24M cume that’s 72% bigger than the lifetime of The Equalizer. Thailand ($1.3M) and Hong Kong ($1.24M) also held well. Next weekend Rupert Friend takes on Russia, Korea, and Argentina among others.

INSIDE OUT
The Disney/Pixar pleaser crossed $700M during the past week worldwide and added Denmark, Finland, Sweden and Singapore to the toon’s territories this frame. With $10.9M more from international play, its global total is now $715.63M after 11 weekends. The Scandinavian territories got off to a great start with Denmark posting the highest ever non-sequel opening for a Pixar release. It also grabbed the No. 1 slot, coming in above the debut of local title Summer Of 92 about the underdog Euro Cup champs of 23 years ago. Sweden opened above Pete Docter’s acclaimed Up. Singapore brought the 2nd biggest Disney/Pixar animated opening weekend of all-time. Elsewhere, the holds continue to be joyful: France (-5%), Australia (-13%), UK (-18%), Japan (-24%), Hong Kong (-36%), Korea (-39%), Thailand (-38%). Italy is next for Riley and friends on September 16, followed by Germany on October 1 and the China start which is not yet dated. 

TED 2
This frame put Universal’s Ted 2 above $100M internationally. Notably, the Seth MacFarlane comedy bowed in Japan which was the original film’s 2nd strongest offshore play. It grossed $4.7M at No. 2 (behind Universal’s own Jurassic World) and 9% above Ted. In Mexico, it was No. 1 with $1.8M. The total weekend dowry is $9.3M in 45 territories for a $109M cume. Combined with the domestic number, Ted 2 is at $190.2M global. Indonesia is the next and final release on September 9.

FANTASTIC FOUR
Approaching $100M internationally, Fantastic Four added $6.8M for a $93.5M offshore cume to date. In 65 markets, it’s showing some good holds including in Venezuela where it’s No. 1 with $7M. Mexico and the UK are still tops with $10.3M and $9.4M respectively. Italy and Japan are still to come.

VACATION
As more summer vacations wrap up this weekend, Warner Bros’ reboot of the 80s franchise picked up a further $6.65M from 5,023 screens in 49 markets. That takes the international cume to $26.5M. A No. 1 opening in Russia was worth $1.8M, topping We’re The Millers by 14%. In holdover cumes, the Ed Helms-led comedy is as follows: Australia ($2.35M); France ($1.4M); the UK ($2.1M); Spain ($1.4M); and Germany ($1.2M). Mexico’s 3rd frame added $406K to establish a cume of $4M and bring the movie above the lifetimes of We’re The Millers and both Horrible Bosses films. Brazil is up next on September 10.

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Mission Impossible More & More

Mission Impossible More

Watching Tom Cruise hurtle through the latest “Mission: Impossible,” taking one blow after another, you can’t help worrying that he won’t be able to keep this action stuff up. It looks so hard! But here he is, the 53-year-old Tom Terrific, holding onto a plane as it takes off, defying sense and gravity, and making you wonder (not for the first time) if he would actually die for our pleasure. By the time he’s flailing underwater without an oxygen tank, struggling against violent surges as breath and time run out, you can almost feel the life leaving his body.

The first “Mission: Impossible” movie, a spinoff from the 1960s television show, was released 19 years ago and was, though it’s almost hard to believe it now, something of an auteurist event, having been directed by Brian De Palma. Mr. Cruise was an established action star by 1996, but he also helped produce the first film, which strengthened his status as an international brand.

 As a star-auteur, he has always been the most important feature and effect of the series, although it’s telling that Mr. De Palma oversaw the set-piece that gave the movies their foundational image: Mr. Cruise’s operative, Ethan Hunt, hovering like a spider (or a puppet) above a luminous white floor while suspended by a very thin rope.

As the clock tick-tocks, and Ethan struggles to keep his cool — a single drop of sweat splashed on the floor would blow the operation — the visual gloss and high-tech gobbledygook, Mr. Cruise’s graceful athleticism and Mr. De Palma’s New Hollywood suspense chops flow together, turning the scene into the emblematic “Mission: Impossible” showstopper. 

It’s the kind of pure cine-spectacle that jolts you before sweeping you up. There’s never been a scene in the series as memorable as that one, even if the exploding fish tank, the film’s other eye-popper, comes close. These sequences set a high bar both for directors who followed in Mr. De Palma’s wake and for Mr. Cruise’s physical performance, which in the later installments has largely involved progressively scarier stunts.

 

The writer and director of the latest movie — its goofy full title is “Mission: Impossible — Rogue Nation” — is Christopher McQuarrie, who’s been tethered to Mr. Cruise for the past decade. They worked together on Mr. McQuarrie’s adaptation of “Jack Reacher,” a grim genre bummer that was a bad fit for Mr. Cruise, who can rarely go tough and dark with conviction.

Mr. McQuarrie also had a hand in writing “Edge of Tomorrow,” Doug Liman’s underloved science-fiction romp that dovetailed with Mr. Cruise’s strengths, including a too infrequently tapped gift for light comedy. Mr. McQuarrie, who made his name with his rebuslike script for “The Usual Suspects,” tends to work the more lugubrious end of the entertainment spectrum, so it’s a nice surprise that “Rogue Nation” isn’t just another clenched-jaw blowout.

Sleek and bloated, specific and generic, “Rogue Nation” is pretty much like most of the “Impossible” movies in that it’s an immense machine that Mr. McQuarrie, after tinkering and oiling, has cranked up again and set humming with twists and turns, global trotting and gadgets, a crack supporting cast and a hard-working star.

Jeremy Renner, Ving Rhames and Simon Pegg (with his valuable comic timing) are all back, joined by the series newcomer Rebecca Ferguson. She plays a super-vixen, the amusingly named Ilsa Faust, who enters with the camera peeking up her skirt and rises like a half-shell Venus, à la the original Bond Girl, Ursula Andress. Even so, Ms. Ferguson has more going for her than man-throttling thighs (and an ace stunt double, Lucy Cork); she holds her own both on the ground and in midair.

Mr. Cruise looks comfortable with Ms. Ferguson, another plus. For most of his action-movie career, he has come across as a less romantically nimble, less self-amused version of Douglas Fairbanks, the swashbuckler who leaped through the silent era. Like Mr. Cruise, Fairbanks performed many of his own white-knuckle stunts, as when he climbs up the chain of a closing drawbridge in “Robin Hood.” (Fairbanks helped start United Artists, which Mr. Cruise owned a piece of for a while.) 

All too often, Mr. Cruise’s insistence on doing frightening stunts in the “Mission: Impossible” series has become its most distinguishing quality. In this movie, though, when he goes airborne like a barnstormer, the scene’s self-conscious sense of the absurd suggests he’s trying to let his inner Harold Lloyd out to play.

That helps speed up “Rogue Nation,” which slows down when the plot tangles or some ceremonial manly peacocking ensues, usually from Mr. Renner and Mr. Cruise. Clearly Mr. McQuarrie and his star feel the need to stamp the series with seriousness, something that Mr. De Palma knew better than to do. 

And throughout “Rogue Nation,” you can sense the filmmakers comfortably, at times awkwardly, playing tug of war with the mood, which grows sinister with the excellent Sean Harris as the regulation evil genius and almost frisky with Alec Baldwin as an intelligence blowhard and Tom Hollander as a political boob. Mr. Pegg’s second-banana flair is especially crucial here because it helps show that Mr. Cruise, whose smile at times seems awfully strained these days, can still take a ribbing as well as a licking.

“Mission: Impossible — Rogue Nation” is rated PG-13 (Parents strongly cautioned). Kids, don’t try this at home.

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