Movies Why Indiana Jones 5 and Mission Impossible 7 Are Struggling to Make a Profit

[skillzdadirecta]

Big Budgets, Big Headaches: Why ‘Indiana Jones 5’ and ‘Mission: Impossible 7’ are Struggling to Make a Profit

VARIETY.COM

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"Mission: Impossible" and "Indiana Jones" each cost $300 million, making it difficult for those films to turn a profit in theaters.

 

I knew Indiana Jones underperformed and honestly wasn't surprised... MI on the other hand is a little shocking.

[Kal-El814]

Because they cost as much to make as the war on terror?

[Commissar SFLUFAN]

The exhorbitant production budgets are certainly a factor, but let's not discount audience apathy towards franchises that are on their fifth, sixth, or higher iterations.

[DarkStar189]

Some movies just aren’t worth seeing in theater even if it cost a fortune to make.

[Air_Delivery]

44 minutes ago, Commissar SFLUFAN said:

The exhorbitant production budgets are certainly a factor, but let's not discount audience apathy towards franchises that are on their fifth, sixth, or higher iterations.

Seriously give me some fresh IPs damn it. 

[Brick]

I thought MI was doing well at the box office 

[thewhyteboar]

35 minutes ago, Air_Delivery said:

Seriously give me some fresh IPs damn it. 

You'll get nothing but metaverse slop until the heat death of the universe.

[GeneticBlueprint]

I absolutely want to see MI7 in the theater. While apathy can certainly be a part of it, I think that movie’s target demo is people my age. People my age are having kids now. I had no idea how difficult it would be to have free time to go to movies once I started having kids. I’ve only gone to the theater pretty much to take my kids. The last time I went to the movies to see something for myself was The Batman. And that’s only because my work took the whole company to see it for a work event. Before that… Can’t remember the last time I went to the theater for me. 

[Mercury33]

I don’t think apathy towards the franchises is the reason at all. I just think neither film generated enough fantastic word of mouth to propel either film into that upper echelon of performance. 

[skillzdadirecta]

1 hour ago, Brick said:

I thought MI was doing well at the box office 

It's doing fine but relative to its' cost it should be doing MUCH better.

[EternallDarkness]

2 hours ago, Brick said:

I thought MI was doing well at the box office 

 

overseas its doing okay (not great) but here in the states it's struggling. It's barely made 160 mil. Sound of Freedom was pulling more daily after opening weekend, 

[Ghost_MH]

1 hour ago, GeneticBlueprint said:

I absolutely want to see MI7 in the theater. While apathy can certainly be a part of it, I think that movie’s target demo is people my age. People my age are having kids now. I had no idea how difficult it would be to have free time to go to movies once I started having kids. I’ve only gone to the theater pretty much to take my kids. The last time I went to the movies to see something for myself was The Batman. And that’s only because my work took the whole company to see it for a work event. Before that… Can’t remember the last time I went to the theater for me. 

 

Last movie I've seen in theaters for myself was Shang-Chi. I've gotten to the point where if I'm finding a sitter, I want to be doing something more worthwhile that a movie even though I've always loved the theater experience.

[SoberChef]

To be fair, at least w/ MI 7 & 8, not only are they shooting back to back, but there have been a fuck ton of start/stop/start/stop throughout the pandemic. I'm sure that alone made the budget soar, not to mention Tom paid out of pocket for a whole damn luxury vessel for all of the crew at one point.

 

Still though, anything north of $200M+ like just stop, what are you doing? As much as I love, adore, & admire films like Waterworld & Geena Davis' Cutthroat Island, as well as numerous others (coincidentally many of which use water in their productions ... wow water really IS a bitch w/ film isn't it!?) If you are going so far askew from what you initially believed a project to cost, maybe have a real heart to heart with your financiers & producers to determine if the ongoing cost & risk is truly worth it?

[SoberChef]

Also to the point, and I'm sure others have said so much, it is an absolutely unsustainable business "model".

[Keyser_Soze]

Probably because they could stay at home and watch Heart of Stone which is just Mission Impossible but with Gal Gadot

[SoberChef]

Just now, Keyser_Soze said:

Probably because they could stay at home and watch Heart of Stone which is just Mission Impossible but with Gal Gadot

Isn't that another of those Netflix "all names/no plot/sloppy writing" projects that they love putting out?

[Keyser_Soze]

37 minutes ago, SoberChef said:

Isn't that another of those Netflix "all names/no plot/sloppy writing" projects that they love putting out?

 

Probably, but it's not going to stop people from watching it.

[Derek]

It sounds like Indiana Jones 5 is balls, but I bet MI 7 would've done/would be doing a lot better, if not for the one two punch of Barbie and Oppenheimer. I feel like it was a victim of bad timing. 

[Keyser_Soze]

47 minutes ago, Derek said:

It sounds like Indiana Jones 5 is balls, but I bet MI 7 would've done/would be doing a lot better, if not for the one two punch of Barbie and Oppenheimer. I feel like it was a victim of bad timing. 

 

Yeah there was no Mission Impossible co-marketing pairing. No one went to bat for Theater Camp, could have been a Impossible Camp 7 weekend!

[Greatoneshere]

I think for MI7 it's just a matter of timing with Barbenheimer and having "part one" right there in the title, which typically scares off viewers (look how many kids complained about Across the Spider-Verse ending on a cliffhanger). Additionally, the 7th one has the best scores/reviews across reviewers and audience members on both IMDb and RottenTomatoes, which is no easy feat since some of the others sit above 90%, etc. So it doesn't seem to be quality or word of mouth either..

[TwinIon]

While the total gross for MI7 was likely hampered by poor timing, I think many are over-emphasizing the effect that had. Look at the charts at The-Numbers. MI7 is set to be pretty average for the franchise. I think the biggest tell is the opening weekend was just not that impressive. Even if Dead Reckoning had similar legs to Fallout (the highest grossing entry in the series) it still wouldn't have made it to $200M domestic with an opening of $54M. I think many, myself included, expected MI to get a boost from the runaway success of Maverick, and that just didn't happen. MI has just never been a runaway hit franchise.

 

Indiana Jones 5 is slightly more of a mystery in that there aren't many good comparison points, and the ones that do exist suggest that it probably should have done better. Distant followups to beloved franchses are more likely to be reboots than legasequals, but when they are more sequels they tend to do pretty well. Top Gun just showed that an 80's action star can reprise a role to incredible success (though it helps the movie was great). Jurassic World came back after a similar amount of time (~15 years), and made tons of money from a pretty bad film (and was a non-Speilberg film originating from a Spielberg franchise). Toy Story came back after 9 years and had a billion dollar success. Star Wars feels unfair, but probably deserves a mention.

 

Franchise reboots aren't really the same thing as Indy 5, but when talking about distant follow ups there are more points of comparison that probably merit a look. Batman came back and did pretty well with Begins, but didn't blow up the box office. Superman had two pretty big gaps and each time came back making decent money, though like Indy 5 the production budgets were inflated and the grosses were less than hoped for. Star Trek came back and did much better than the previous entries but wasn't exactly a complete smash hit. Rocky came back with Creed and did well, though at a much smaller budget.

 

Entries where the sequels dramatically failed to reach their predecessors are more rare. Terminator, Bourne, and Ghostbusters are the ones that come to mind, and I'd argue all of those are worse movies than Indy 5. They also all lacked original big name actors. Indy 5 only making over half of what Crystal Skull did 15 years ago is pretty terrible, and that's without taking the budget into account.

[GeneticBlueprint]

1 minute ago, TwinIon said:

charts at The-Numbers.

 

Doubled its production budget? Yeah this movie isn't struggling.

[Kamusha]

People are less interested in franchises than they used to. Mission Impossible was the third major movie this year to be a part one. Being upfront about it in the title no doubt hurt. Audiences are tired of this shit.

 

Barbie and Oppenheimer are doing well for many reasons but one thing that I believe is truly helping is that they are both stand-alone movies. After the lockdowns we watched so much serialized shit that when we started returning to theaters we wanted to see movies that did what movies do best - which is to tell a complete story from beginning to end. People want that full emotional experience.

 

Maverick was a sequel but also functioned as a stand-alone movie that could be watched without seeing the first. The movie did well because it is such a satisfying experience from a storytelling perspective. The whole third act is thrilling and is paying off all the themes that were set up in the first two acts. It was a full emotional experience and many viewers came back again and again. You don't get that from a part one, or a movie that is more concerned with setting up future entries. Audiences want movies to function like movies again, not like a long running television show.

[BloodyHell]

On 8/16/2023 at 7:00 AM, SoberChef said:

Isn't that another of those Netflix "all names/no plot/sloppy writing" projects that they love putting out?

God, I know she’s one of the most beautiful women in the world, but I’ll never understand how Gadot became a “Name”. She is genuinely one of the worst actresses in Hollywood.