Having completed three full weeks of release, Paramount’s Mission: Impossible – The Final Reckoning celebrated a major achievement recently. The mega-budget action film passed the coveted $500 million mark at the worldwide box office, as it aims to clear the unreasonably high bar for success that it has set for itself. Purportedly the final film of the long-running franchise, The Final Reckoning cost a reported $400 million to produce, which means that it needs to gross around twice that amount in order to break even. It will eventually need to surpass the $791 million haul of Mission: Impossible – Fallout, the franchise’s top-grossing film, if it wants to be seen as a success. Among the many movies that The Final Reckoning overtook this past weekend was the only successful franchise-starter that Guy Ritchie has ever directed.
With $506 million at the worldwide box office, The Final Reckoning has surpassed the $498 million haul of Sherlock Holmes, the blockbuster action-mystery film that Ritchie released in 2009. Starring Robert Downey Jr. and Jude Law as Sherlock Holmes and Dr. John Watson, the movie served as an edgy update to Arthur Conan Doyle‘s oft-adapted mystery stories. Sherlock Holmes was produced on a reported budget of $90 million, and it opened to mostly positive reviews. It currently holds a 70% score on Rotten Tomatoes. A sequel, titled Sherlock Holmes: A Game of Shadows, was released in 2011. Uniting Ritchie with Downey Jr. and Law, the movie made $535 million worldwide against a reported budget of $125 million.
A third installment has been stuck in development hell for over a decade, with director Dexter Fletcher previously attached. In those years, Ritchie has attempted to start numerous franchises, all unsuccessfully. He directed The Man from UNCLE, King Arthur: Legend of the Sword, Aladdin, and most recently, Fountain of Youth. However, his film The Gentlemen spawned a Netflix spinoff series, and he’s set to release a Young Sherlock series for Prime Video soon.
‘The Final Reckoning’ Has Proven to be Quite Divisive
Directed by Christopher McQuarrie and starring Tom Cruise, The Final Reckoning is no longer the lowest-grossing installment of the series. It recently overtook the lifetime global hauls of Mission: Impossible and Mission: Impossible III. In a few days, it should be able to overtake Mission: Impossible 2 and Mission: Impossible – Dead Reckoning. After that, it’s anybody’s game. The film opened to divisive reactions from critics and crowds, and appears to have settled at an 80% Rotten Tomatoes score, and an 89% audience score. You can watch The Final Reckoning in theaters, and stay tuned to Collider for more updates.