'Mission: Impossible 鈥� Rogue Nation': How the movie series has endured
The movie business has gone through big changes since the first 'Mission: Impossible' arrived on the scene in the 1990s. How has the franchise stayed on top?
The movie business has gone through big changes since the first 'Mission: Impossible' arrived on the scene in the 1990s. How has the franchise stayed on top?
The new 鈥淢ission: Impossible鈥� movie is coming to theaters on July 31, and while the movie business is vastly different from when the first movie hit the big screen, the "Mission" movies still consistently score at the box office.
鈥淢ission: Impossible 鈥� Rogue Nation鈥� brings back Tom Cruise as Ethan Hunt, who is part of the Impossible Mission Force. In this film, the government is beginning to question whether having the IMF in operation is a good idea anymore, but Ethan and his colleagues believe they still have villains to catch.
The film is based on the 1960s TV show of the same name. 鈥淩ogue鈥� is the fifth film in the series.聽
The first movie came out in 1996, when original stories were the order of the day. 鈥淚ndependence Day,鈥� a tale of aliens attacking Earth, was both the highest-grossing film of the year and an original story, as was 鈥淭wister,鈥� a film about people researching tornadoes and the second-highest-grossing. 鈥淢ission鈥� was the third-highest-grossing and was based off a TV program, but the fourth-highest, 鈥淛erry Maguire,鈥� and the seventh-highest, 鈥淭he Rock,鈥� were original. The others were mostly remakes of previous films, such as 鈥淩ansom鈥� and the comedies 鈥淭he Birdcage鈥� and 鈥淭he Nutty Professor.鈥� The high-grossing 鈥淎 Time to Kill鈥� was an adaptation of a John Grisham novel.
One 1996 box office hit, the live-action adaptation of the Disney animated film 鈥�101 Dalmations,鈥� was a harbinger of the current trend of adapting Disney animated movies into live-action stories.
The 鈥淢ission鈥� movies did fairly well at the box office over the years after the debut of the first, with the second in particular becoming a smash hit. But the fourth movie, 2011鈥檚 鈥淢ission: Impossible 鈥� Ghost Protocol,鈥� entered a very different marketplace. 鈥淕host鈥� faced off against the final 鈥淗arry Potter鈥� film (the highest-grossing movie of the year), a 鈥淭wilight鈥� film, and a Marvel movie, 鈥淭hor鈥� as well as movies based on theme park rides (a 鈥淧irates of the Caribbean鈥� film) and toys (a 鈥淭ransformers鈥� film).
Nevertheless, the fourth 鈥淢ission鈥澛爉ovie still succeeded at the box office and was one of the best-received of the series, drawing new attention to the movie franchise. 鈥淢ission鈥� has continued to creatively reinvent itself, like another movie series even more long-running than 鈥淢ission,鈥� the James Bond films. Like 鈥淢ission,鈥� the 鈥淏ond鈥� movies always did well at the box office but entered a creative slump with the tail end of the movies starring Pierce Brosnan. The series was revitalized with the 2006 film 鈥淐asino Royale,鈥� which not only brought on a new Bond, actor Daniel Craig, but brought Bond back to his roots, showing how he embarked on his career.聽