Ethan Hunt has been box office gold for Paramount. When you have five films (and possibly more coming) in a franchise, it's an impressive feat to have all but one considered quality. Which is the one? Well, you obviously haven't watched them all. Mission: Impossible II is by far the worst of the franchise, and the flowing hair didn't help. It did also star Thandie Newton, and I've never seen the actress look so beautiful. But I digress...
Mission: Impossible 6 Goes on Hiatus for Cruise
With a spend of about $650 million across the entire franchise, the Mission: Impossible films have gone on to earn just short of $3 billion worldwide. If that's not the definition of cash cow, I don't know what is. The revenue just doesn't bode well for the franchise, but Tom Cruise. The driving force as Ethan Hunt, Cruise continues to impress in the role. To top it off, he does a lot of his own stunts, including stunts that stuntmen won't do. And the franchise shows no signes of slowing. Rogue Nation netted about $500 million worldwide all by itself. All of this combines to give Cruise a strong position when negotiating future installments.
Which brings us to the conflict. Paramount Pictures has announced that they have paused the pre-production phase of Mission: Impossible 6 due to a salary dispute with Tom Cruise. It turns out that the star got a pretty sweet deal from Universal Pictures in terms of backend compensation for The Mummy reboot, and he wants the same deal here. As shown, this actioner franchise prints money, so it makes sense that he sees more (guaranteed) income opportunity.
Paused But Not Impossible
Paramount might not be a fan of whatever taste Universal gave Cruise, but this is by no means the end of the franchise. Considering that the franchise seems to expect more from Cruise -- just take a look at the stunts -- it gives validity to why he expects more as well. Let's just hope he's not being too greedy.
What do you think? Does Tom Cruise deserve more? Do we even need another M:I installment? As advised in American Gangster: Quitting while ahead is not the same as quitting.
Comments