Star Oscar Isaac didn’t have a great time playing the titular villain in the 2016 superhero movie X-Men: Apocalypse, which served as the highly-anticipated follow-up to the tremendously-received blockbuster X-Men: Days of Future Past. In an interview with GQ, he said that working on the movie was “excruciating,” mainly because he was covered in prosthetics and barely got an opportunity to interact with his talented co-stars. The hard work wasn’t exactly worth it, with the movie earning mediocre reviews and underperforming at the box office. It concluded its global run with $543 million, and has now been overtaken by Mission: Impossible – The Final Reckoning.
Starring Tom Cruise in what could be his final time playing the legendary Ethan Hunt, The Final Reckoning has been having a tough time at the box office. While it’s set to overtake its predecessor, Mission: Impossible – Dead Reckoning, at the global box office this week, it still has a long way to go before it can be counted as a bona fide success. The biggest hurdle in The Final Reckoning‘s path is its massive budget of $400 million, which makes it one of the most expensive movies ever made. It needs to generate around twice this number in order to break even — a performance like this is out of the question at this stage.
Directed by Christopher McQuarrie, The Final Reckoning has grossed $545 million globally so far, and will likely surpass Dead Reckoning‘s $565 million lifetime haul this weekend. And although it’ll probably also cross the $600 million mark, this could be its final major milestone. The movie opened to divisive reviews, and is currently sitting at an 80% score on Rotten Tomatoes. Audiences have awarded it a slightly better 88% rating on the aggregator website. Apocalypse, on the other hand, cost a reported $178 million to produce, and is sitting at a “rotten” 47% score on the website.
Isaac’s Experience Didn’t Sour Him on Superhero Cinema
It was the final installment of the series to be directed by the now-disgraced Bryan Singer, who also made the first, second, and fifth films in the main franchise. Speaking to GQ, Isaac said about his experience, “I didn’t know when I said yes that that was what was going to be happening. That I was going to be encased in glue, latex, and a 40-pound suit — that I had to wear a cooling mechanism at all times. I couldn’t move my head, ever.” Despite his dismay, Isaac also appeared in the Marvel series Moon Knight, and in Sony’s Spider-Verse films. Also starring James McAvoy, Jennifer Lawrence, Michael Fassbender, Nicholas Hoult, and others, the movie spawned another follow-up, X-Men: Dark Phoenix, which ended the franchise for good. Stay tuned to Collider for more updates.