Mission: Impossible bests Winnie-the-Pooh at box office
Tom Cruise sped past Winnie-the-Pooh at the North American box office to lead all films for the second straight week with an estimated US$35 million (1.1 billion baht) in ticket sales for Mission Impossible — Fallout.
The success of Paramount Pictures’ sixth, stunt-filled Mission: Impossible instalment, along with muted enthusiasm for the Walt Disney’s Christopher Robin, made for a seldom-seen result: A Disney movie debuting in second place (the film opens in Thailand this weekend).
In a year where the studio has already notched three $1 billion films worldwide ( Black Panther, Avengers: Infinity War and, as of this week, Incredibles 2), the more modest Winnie-the-Pooh live-action revival opened with a relatively ho-hum $25 million. As a reminder that Christopher Robin was a minor release for Disney, Black Panther on Sunday became the third film to ever cross $700 million domestically, a feat only previously accomplished by Avatar and Star Wars: The Force Awakens.
Made for an estimated $75 million, Marc Forster’s Christopher Robin stars Ewan McGregor as a grown-up Christopher Robin reunited with the beloved characters of the Hundred Acre Wood: Pooh, Tigger, Piglet and the rest (who are rendered digitally but convincingly felt-like).
Cathleen Taff, head of distribution for Disney, confirmed that Christopher Robin
has been denied a release in China, locking the release out from the world’s second largest film market. While China provides no reason for the films it doesn’t select for its theatres, government sensors have recently been blocking images of Winniethe-Pooh after bloggers began using him to parody Chinese president Xi Jinping.
The late-summer success of Mission: Impossible — which has made $124.5 million thus far along with $205 million internationally — is helping solidify a comeback summer for Hollywood. The summer box office is up 10.6% from last year’s record-low season, according to comScore, and year-to-date ticket sales are up 8%.
Not all the news was great. Comedy continues to struggle at the box office. The R-rated action-comedy The Spy Who Dumped Me, starring Mila Kunis and Kate McKinnon, debuted in third with $12.4 million for Lionsgate.
And a pair of poorly reviewed releases sputtered in nationwide release.
Fox’s young-adult dystopian thriller The Darkest Minds (19% “fresh” on Rotten Tomatoes) opened with $5.7 million on 3,127 screens. And right-wing filmmaker and convicted felon Dinesh D’Souza’s Death Of A Nation (0% “fresh” on Rotten Tomatoes) debuted with $2.3 million on 1,032 screens.