Mission Impossible: The Final Reckoning’s $400 Million Budget! What Does This Mean?

Mission Impossible: The Final Reckoning’s $400 Million Budget! What Does This Mean?  

In just about a month and a half the latest installment of the Mission Impossible franchise, Mission Impossible: The Final Reckoning hits theaters. It was reported that the budget for the movie is going to be $400 million. That raises some big alarms and questions about its profitability. What do I think about it? Let’s talk about it! 

• We’ve sort of known the production troubles for this movie for a while now. They haven’t been disastrous or have me worried about the quality of the movie. But there’s been problems with the production in terms of the action sequences. If you’ve seen Mission Impossible: Dead Reckoning you know that a submarine will play a major part in The Final Reckoning. During the production the submarine kept on malfunctioning and caused the budget to skyrocket to $400 million. This was last year when this stuff was reported so I wasn’t sure how much that was true. The budget report came out and says that the movie’s budget is $400 million. With the movie releasing in May I have more confidence and belief that the movie will actually cost $400 million. 

• I’m not too surprised that the movie’s budget is very expensive. The budget for Dead Reckoning was $290 million. That movie was a victim of filming during COVID and that changed the production of the movie drastically. It made sense that it would cost that much. It also seemed weird how Paramount let the budget get that big they should have controlled it’s budget more. The Final Reckoning had to stop filming because of the strikes and then the submarine problems caused the movie’s budget to escalate to huge numbers. The fact that. I don’t know what this movie’s original budget was going to be but looking at the budget of the past Mission Impossible films I would guess around $200-$220 million. Prior to Dead Reckoning, Mission Impossible: Fallout was the most expensive film of the franchise at $178 million. These last two films are getting bigger and bigger so the budget got bigger. But having the budget go from a reasonably possibly $200 million to $400 million is crazy. Something similar to that happened with Gladiator II but the movie’s budget went from $160 million to $250 million. I don’t know what it is about Paramount and their problems with the strikes stopping productions but they need to figure this out and make sure this doesn’t have to happen to their future films. Gladiator II made almost $500 million at the box office, for that movie that would be a good number. If its budget was $160 million then it would have been profitable. 

• Something similar happened with Dead Reckoning if the budget was $180 million like Fallout. And if you took Dead Reckoning’s gross of $570 million against a $180 million budget it’s profitable. But when it has $290 million it’s a big disappointment when it doesn’t even make $600 million. The Final Reckoning has a budget of $100 million more. When it comes to looking at a movie’s profitability, it needs to make 2.5 to 3 times its budget. In order for this movie to be profitable it basically needs to make $1 billion. The highest grossing movie of the franchise is Fallout at $780 million. The fact that this movie will make over $200 million more than the previous highest grossing film is insane and near impossible (no pun intended). With this movie being the final film in the franchise and if they market it as that and make it clear this is it, maybe it can make between $600-$700 million. Again if the budget was reasonable at $180 to $200 million that would be a solid number. 

• It’s sad that The Final Reckoning could be one of 2025’s biggest box office disappointments. I don’t think it’ll bomb, it will lose Paramount millions and millions of dollars. Dead Reckoning was my favorite movie of 2023, The Final Reckoning was mty most anticipated movie of the year. I’m going into this movie with super expectations and expecting a great time at the movies. I’m watching the franchise right now and I love it. This is one of my favorite movie franchises of all time. Between Top Gun: Maverick and Mission Impossible: Dead Reckoning, Tom Cruise has been on a high note this decade. Unless a miracle happens and it has a $100 million + domestic opening and has great legs going into June and makes $1 billion. This movie isn’t going to be profitable and that sucks. I guess Tom Cruise’s real impossible mission is to make Mission Impossible: The Final Reckoning profitable.