'Mission' accomplishes No. 1 at box office
Nineteen years later, secret agent Ethan Hunt can still pack a punch.
Mission: Impossible — Rogue Nation, the fifth installment in Tom Cruise's death-defying spy franchise, scaled to the top of the box office with $56 million, according to tracking firm Rentrak.
Pulling in $20.3 million Friday, Rogue Nation had the best opening day in the history of the series, which kicked off with 1996's Mission: Impossible. It comes in ahead of the franchise's last installment, Mission: Impossible — Ghost Protocol, which started in limited release with $12.8 million in December 2011, on its way to $209.4 million in the USA. The M:I films have raked in more than $2 billion worldwide, with plans for a sixth already underway, Cruise announced last week.
Co-starring Simon Pegg and Jeremy Renner, Rogue Nation follows Ethan Hunt as he squares off against a terrorist organization known as the Syndicate, with the help of mysterious femme fatale Ilsa Faust (Rebecca Ferguson). The action-packed spectacle scored well with critics (93% positive reviews on aggregate site RottenTomatoes.com), including USA TODAY's Brian Truitt, who awarded it three out of four stars. Audiences, which skewed male (58%) and over the age of 25 (68%), gave it a 92% approval rating.
Along with the M:I brand recognition, Rogue Nation's success was fueled by an aggressive promotional campaign from star Tom Cruise, who impressed in a "Lip Sync Battle" with Jimmy Fallon on The Tonight Show and touted the film's aerial stunts in interviews. "You've really got to hand it to (him) — he treats the marketing like he treats his stunts. He goes all out," says Rentrak senior analyst Paul Dergarabedian. "Audiences love when they think actors can not only talk the talk, but walk the walk."
Meanwhile, most moviegoers opted not to Vacation with Ed Helms and Christina Applegate. The raunchy road-trip comedy, a revival of the 1983 film of the same name, sputtered with only $14.9 million in second place ($21.2 million since opening Wednesday).
Critics lambasted the film, slapping it with merely 23% positive reviews on Rotten Tomatoes, although audiences who saw it were more along for the ride (61% approved). Vacation was projected to earn just under $30 million in five days by some box-office forecasters, but failed to reach the heights of recent R-rated comedy openings, such as last summer's Neighbors ($49 million) and 22 Jump Street ($57.1 million).
Launching with $3.8 million Wednesday, Vacation "started out pretty soft last week and we thought it would build," Dergarabedian says. "It was great counterprogramming, but Mission: Impossible just really dominated the marketplace."
Rounding out the top five, Ant-Man continued to muscle forward with third place and $12.6 million, dropping a small 49% in its third week. Minions fell one spot to fourth and $12.2 million, while Pixels logged only $10.4 million for fifth. Adam Sandler's arcade-game movie continues to disappoint with only $45.6 million in 10 days.
On the specialty films front, awards hopeful The End of the Tour impressed with almost $127,000 in just four theaters. The film, which had the biggest opening of any Sundance Film Festival entry so far this year, stars Jason Segel as late author David Foster Wallace, who embarks on the last leg of a 1996 book tour with Rolling Stone writer David Lipsky (Jesse Eisenberg).
Overall, box office is down from the same weekend last year, when Disney/Marvel's Guardians of the Galaxy surprised with $94.3 million.
Final numbers are expected Monday.