It was a buoyant holiday frame for the last releases of 2011, with audiences turning out in droves (and likely family-loaded minivans) to boost just about every film in theaters. Biggest congrats are in order for Mission: Impossible - Ghost Protocol, which is indeed set to make in 17 days what Mission: Impossible III made in its entire theatrical run. And, look! A bunch more people caught the timely holiday spirit and bought a Zoo this week, along with a War Horse and, uh, Garry Marshall's New Year's Eve. Enjoy it while it lasts, Garry. Auld lang syne, 2011. Your holiday weekend receipts after the jump!
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Sherlock Holmes may have won the weekend with a modest debut, but was it the real box office winner? Not with Tom Cruise and the Mission: Impossible gang around to flaunt their fab limited release per-screen average in everyone's faces, a precursor to next week's Christmastime blitz. And, yeah. The new Chipmunks is out. A moment of silence for all the poor souls who helped it debut in the number two slot. I'd wager even David Cross feels for you.
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After earning back-to-back Academy Award nominations -- in 2010, for his breakout role in Kathryn Bigelow's The Hurt Locker and in 2011, for his supporting part in Ben Affleck's Boston crime drama The Town -- Jeremy Renner decided to dive headfirst into the action genre with four consecutive big-budget action projects. The first, Mission: Impossible - Ghost Protocol, which co-stars Renner as a mysteriously overqualified IMF agent assisting Tom Cruise's Ethan Hunt on his latest globe-sweeping assignment, premieres this weekend in IMAX. The next three films, Hansel and Gretel: Witch Hunters, The Avengers and The Bourne Legacy, will all hit theaters next year, making the California-raised actor the busiest action star of 2012.
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What does it take to revive a passion for one's work, years on, whether said vocation is saving the world or churning out sequels in a blockbuster franchise? How does one reclaim human contact in today's isolating, gadget-dependent world? These are questions IMF agent Ethan Hunt and his portrayer Tom Cruise face in Mission: Impossible -- Ghost Protocol, Cruise's fourth outing in the spy series, directed entertainingly enough by Pixar veteran Brad Bird. If the hoodied Cruise evokes a touch of Eminem-level moodiness in the posters, it's with good reason: Stopping a maniacal supervillain may be on the docket yet again, but this time around Ethan Hunt has gone emo.
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When Tom Cruise adapted the Mission: Impossible television series for the screen in the mid-'90s, he made an interesting decision: Instead of branding the spy franchise himself, he would let different directors customize each installment according to their unique strengths and visions. Following three distinct Mission: Impossible takes from Brian De Palma, John Woo and J.J. Abrams, Academy Award-winning filmmaker Brad Bird -- who, before Ghost Protocol, had never helmed a live action feature -- stepped up to the plate for the fourth M:I installment.
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This past week, Tom Cruise has circled the globe in celebration of Mission: Impossible - Ghost Protocol's international premieres. Along the way, he has sparked one insane rumor (about how the people of Indian will only scream for him if a free buffet lunch is provided) and has been forced to pose with a smattering of random overseas notables like the Duchess of Alba Cayetana Fitz-James Stuart in Madrid last night. What resulted on the red carpet is one of the most awkwardly staged premiere photos of Cruise's career, and in honor of this, Movieline is asking you for a fitting caption.
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This Dec. 16, Mission: Impossible - Ghost Protocol premieres in IMAX five days in advance of its general release. Why exactly? Probably to encourage fans of the Tom Cruise franchise to see the picture in the large format director Brad Bird intended when he shot thirty minutes-worth of the fourth Ethan Hunt film in IMAX. To convince journalists that the large format is indeed worth higher ticket prices, an advance release date and a little early buzz, Paramount screened about 20 minutes worth of wild action sequences at the Rave 18 theater in Los Angeles last week. Ahead, the stomach-flipping details (and very mild spoilers).
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How hardcore is Tom Cruise? So hardcore that he actually scaled the tallest structure in the world -- Dubai's Burj Khalifa, which stands at just over a half-mile high -- for a perilous, stomach-churning action sequence in the upcoming Brad Bird-directed Mission Impossible: Ghost Protocol. Video proof of the superstar's stunt hardcore-ness ahead.
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