Will Mission: Impossible, Jurassic World, Superman Save the Box Office?

Uh, what year is it?

No.

I don’t think the last Mission Impossible movie even made its money back.. maybe they should stop humping the AI bandwagon.

Superman should do well.

However, rather than "saving the box office" how about we save cinema first and the box office will follow.

JP7 cost $265M and MI8 cost c. $400M. The latter is one of the most expensive films ever made but they are both deep down the franchise mines trying to make some pretty thin seams pay out (I'd genuinely need to check which of these franchise outings I've seen as they all merge into one). MI7 cost $291M and took $571M. Unless the sheer amount of money they threw at MI8 somehow translates into more interest, they'll be lucky to break even and it may even kill the franchise. JP7 has a better chance as JP6 cost a similar amount and brought in a billion bucks, with the combination of Gareth Edwards and Scarjo possibly helping get the interest up but breaking a billion is still less than making four times the amount back. Cap 4 cost $180M and is currently sitting at $198M with some pretty poor word-of-mouth suggesting it won't have great longevity and rightly so - it is not a complete film in its own right, just a bridge from the previous chunk of the franchise to the next and on and on until RJD returns as the real Marvel Jesus, so they can at least turn a profit from this phase.

What we really need is cheaper films that can make a bigger return on their money.

Companion (2025), which I saw on Monday and was really good, cost $10M and has already taken $33M. Longlegs cost less than $10M and took $126M with Osgood Perkins' next film, The Monkey having a similar budget and great buzz, so should do similar numbers. Terrifier 3 cost $2M and made $90M. EEAAO cost $14-15M and made $143M.

Unfortunately, backing winners that can make a double figure return on the investment requires someone at the top to have good taste and the ability to spot a good script. Which turns out to be a bit of a stumbling block, so studios throw piles of money at a franchise in the hope that the momentum of good feelings towards the earlier films will carry them to modest success. As bad as it turned out, the Weinsteins seemed to have a good eye, now A24 and Neon are doing a great job. On the blockbuster front, I have a lot of hope for the Gunniverse - he has a great eye for good material and is clearly unprepared to make DC Studios just a production line banging out franchise fodder to order, but we'll see what it looks like a decade from now as Marvel started so well.

yarrrr