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Mission Impossible - Rogue Nation

It’s a strong $20.4 million opening day for the fifth entry in the Mission: Impossible franchise, which is on its way to a very easy weekend victory. Comparisons to previous Mission: Impossible films are impossible, uh, very difficult, as 2011’s Ghost Protocol opened in December, while 2006’s Mission: Impossible 3 was a victim of the Tom Cruise Is Crazy narrative as it opened to $47 million and then quickly flamed out with just $133 million, a franchise low.

$4 million on Rogue Nation’s Friday total comes from Thursday evening showings, which is pretty much average these days. The stellar reviews will keep it afloat, and it’s looking at a weekend of $49.8 million, though I wouldn’t be surprised if the estimate comes in at over or at $50 million because that makes a much nicer headline.

Vacation

Opening on Wednesday, the Vacation sequel (or perhaps reboot) amassed $6.3 million in two days before taking in $4.5 million on Friday. Again, nobody will ever learn that Wednesday openings are stupid. It’s the era of instant feedback via social media. If you’re using the Wednesday opening as an attempt to build word-of-mouth, all you’re doing is reducing the weekend total, which is generally all that gets reported. There is plenty of time with Thursday evening and Friday shows to build up positive buzz that will later pay dividends. This has been your periodic rant about how stupid Wednesday openings are. Anyway, Vacation is kind of a disappointment for what was aiming to be a revitalized franchise, aiming for $12.6 million in three days and $18.9 million over five.

Notable Holdovers

It’s ugly out there for all of last weekend’s new releases, with Pixels down 65% to $3.2 million, Southpaw off 63% to $2.3 million and Paper Towns collapsing 74% to $1.6 million. Give them $9.3 million, $7.1 million and $4.6 million weekends respectively.

Projected Estimates for the Top Ten (Three-Day)
Projected Rank	Film	Estimated Gross
1	Mission: Impossible - Rogue Nation	49.8
2	Ant-Man	12.7
3	Vacation	12.6
4	Minions	12.1
5	Trainwreck	9.4
6	Pixels	9.3
7	Southpaw	7.1
8	Paper Towns	4.6
9	Inside Out	4.4
10	Jurassic World	3.4