With the previous film garnering such immense grosses and incredibly positive reviews, one would think Rogue Nation would be an easy slam dunk. However, there are some notable obstacles facing Ethan Hunts newest adventure, a number of them stemming from Tom Cruise. Since the last Mission: Impossible movie, he's starred in a number of underperforming movies like Rock of Ages, Jack Reacher and Oblivion that have diluted his brand a bit. Plus, the documentary Going Clear from this past April, which focuses on Scientology, made numerous allegations towards Cruise regarding him doing some shady activity within that religion. All sorts of Scientology related controversy certainly didn't help the release of Mission: Impossible III nine years ago, which was a domestic box office underpeformer.
Not helping matters is an ad campaign that's emphasized stunning stunts without highlighting a clear villain. This has all led the film to have tracking that is pointing to an opening weekend in the high 30 millions to low 40 millions. Thankfully, the film is getting incredible reviews that should boost its profile, though it's unlikely to hit $50 million for its opening weekend which does feel a tad underwhelming. Still, Paramount picked a great release date here, since the movie can play throughout August without competition from a bunch of new summer blockbusters (the only film to fall in that category opening next month is Fantastic Four), so Rogue Nation should at least play well in the coming weeks.
Vacation is also not looking to fare perfectly this weekend, with this sequel/remake/reboot to the National Lampoons Vacation series never really clicking in ads and lacking a recognizable lead (this would certainly be a higher profile film if Will Ferrell or Seth Rogen were in the Ed Helms role) that could give it a much needed boost. It opened in theaters yesterday instead of a traditional Friday opening, and the numbers so far are, frankly, anemic. It only made $3.8 million yesterday, a sum that includes $1.2 million from Tuesday night screenings. It's also a 43% decrease from the Wednesday opening day debut of We're The Millers (a movie Vacation is aping in both its marketing and release pattern).
If Vacation were to play exactly like Millers over its first five days, Vacation would make about $21 million during that time frame, an underwhelming result. While the $31 million price tag of the feature means they won't lose money on it, it is disappointing the film couldn't perform better, especially since Warner Bros. seemed to have a lot of confidence in its box office potential (they moved it from its original October release date to a late summer bow).
With both new releases not looking to blow the doors off the box office, it should be a solid weekend for holdovers, with more family-oriented titles like Minions and Inside Out likely benefiting the most from the fact that neither of this weeks two new releases will have much appeal to family audiences. However, two of last weeks newcomers are surely going to tumble hard this weekend, though for very different reasons. Paper Towns won't have as harsh of a second weekend dip as The Fault In Our Stars (which lost 69% in its second frame), but it's gonna still fall just under or over 60% thanks its extremely frontloaded nature last weekend.
Pixels meanwhile wasn't too frontloaded (its Thursday night grosses actually accounted for a far smaller portion of its opening weekend gross when compared to other blockbusters from this summer) but word-of-mouth for the film is not kind at all and audiences looking for either action or comedy will likely choose one of this weeks new releases over Pixels. Look for it lose around 57% this go round for a $10.4 million second weekend. By contrast, last weekends newcomer Southpaw should face a much smaller dip since neither of this weeks movies directly compete with it.
Below you can see my opening weekend and final gross predictions for this weekends new releases as well as my projections for this weekends top 5.
Mission: Impossible- Rogue Nation
Opening Weekend: $47 million
Total Gross: $145 million
Vacation
Opening Weekend: $15 million
Total Gross: $50 million
1) Mission Impossible: Rogue Nation: $47 million
2) Vacation: $15 million
3) Ant-Man: $13.8 million
4) Minions: $13.5 million
5) Trainwreck: $11.3 million
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